


The secret of Five

by Brainyuck



Category: I Am Number Four (2011), The Lorien Legacies - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:26:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 75,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brainyuck/pseuds/Brainyuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of the remaining Loric continues. Picking up where the rise of nine ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prolog

**Prolog**

Three men with long black beards walk towards the entrance of the hidden cave. Their long black hair hangs down around wide cowboy hats and their long black coats cover their entire body from their shoulders all the way down to their long black boots. In fact, everything about them is long and black, except for their skin, which is kind of bruise coloured. Nonetheless, you might mistake them for just extraordinary humans on first sight. Actual humans probably do mistake them for extraordinary humans, but I know better than that.

They pass my hiding spot without noticing and I allow myself to breathe again. For a second I thought I was too sloppy. That I may have grown too confident from all those little successes I've been having lately. I have to remind myself I'm not invincible. Not yet, at least.

The three Mogadorians go straight for a rock formation in the side of the mountain and only now do I notice the small hole that probably leads deep inside the mountain. I have been expecting something like this, some sort of hidden entrance, but even with my advanced abilities, I had no clue where it was. Guess you have to know exactly what you're looking for to find it.

As the Mogs enter the cave, they walk by a bunch of dead animals, and without even paying them any attention they just step on the remains. I grimace and turn away. Of course it's no use; it makes no difference if I turn away or not. I can still see them crunch the dead animals under their boots. It's the downside of my abilities, the gift's curse. Still, it's hard to overcome old habits.

When they have disappeared inside the cave, I decide it's time to make my move. Waiting won't make it any better and I'm sure, that by now the Mogadorians will have realized that I'm not in Jamaica anymore.

I silently stand up and rub my wrists. My feet have gone numb from the hours spent sitting behind these rocks. The reason why I came to West Virginia in the first place was to check some rumours about a UFO being spotted near a mountain in this very national park. After some research I figured I had to go and take a closer look.

I hide the big wooden chest under some loose tree roots. Not a great spot, the side with the padlock sticks halfway out. Anyone who looks behind this rock will probably be able to see it, but it'll have to do. I won't be in the cave for long, anyway. I keep wondering why we were not given backpacks instead of those unpractical chests, though.

I put on my Loric glove and test it, just to make sure it still works after all this trouble in South America. When I close my wrist, the glove extends until it covers my whole arm. At the tip it gets sharper until it forms some sort of blade. When I hit the rock I've been hiding behind, it cuts right through it. Yup, still working fine.

One last look at the chest, then I duck and run towards the cave, trying to avoid the carcasses. One more reason to hate the Mogadorians, I think while hopping in between the empty spaces on the ground.

I stop for a split second to make sure no one is following. A noise to my left makes me jump, but it's just the wind in the trees. I bite my lip. So far, so good. I slip through the entrance and I can already feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins.

Back in the years my Cêpan was still alive, it used to be hope that drove me. Hope, that forced me to carry on, to go through all those hard times. Hope that we would survive. That the Mogs wouldn't find us, that all the surviving Garde would come together and then eventually, one day, take back Lorien and claim what is ours.

I have given up on hope long ago. All I can think of now is revenge.

The three Mogs are still inside the tunnel behind the entrance to the cave, but they have their backs turned towards me when I sneak in. They don't expect anyone to attack them, which is why they feel safe enough to deactivate the force field around the cave. Their guard is down, they have become too sure of themselves; just like the Loric had when almost our entire species got wiped out. On that day, when the Mogadorians invaded Lorien and everything collapsed, they paid for their mistakes. And they paid badly. But the Mogadorians make mistakes, too. And that day, it was a grave one: They let a few of us survive. A mistake I won't make.

The three Mogs turn around in surprise, just when I jump at the first and ram the glove-blade right into his heart. Ash has never tasted better.

* * *

Hey everyone!

This is the Prolog of a fanfic I've been thinking about for a while now, and I'd really like to continue it. First, I want to know if anyone's interested in reading more of this or so. I know there are tons of awesome fanfics about the Lorien Legacies, I hope someone will take the time to read this, though.

So... please, please, please leave your thoughts in the commentsection, it would really, really mean a lot to me.

Please :)


	2. Chapter One

**CHAPTER ONE**

Having water around me always makes me feel better.

I remember one time, not much after we had landed on Earth, when Adelina – she was called Emmalina back then - and I weren't so desperate to find shelter or food that we actually allowed ourselves some freetime. It was winter and almost freezing outside, but I still insisted on going to the lake we lived near to, and after days of begging Emmalina finally gave in.

I couldn't swim back then, but I still wanted to try it out. Except for a shower, I had never been in water before. In the beginning it was really cold inside the lake, but after a couple of minutes my body got used to it and from then it wasn't so bad at all. I waded around for a while, not paying attention to the time passing, until Emmalina suddenly rushed in the lake and dove for me. She pulled me out by the shoulder and dragged me back to our car. I had fallen asleep inside the water, it had been so comfortable.

Back then I didn't have my legacy to breathe underwater, who knows what would have happened if she hadn't rescued me. As the charm was still up back then, it might have protected me, but I'm not sure about that. I remember something about the charm only protecting you from enemies, not from your own stupidity.

Maybe it would have made an exception for me. My stupidity _is_ my biggest enemy.

So, Emmalina probably saved my life there.

Once more I don't know how to make it up to her. Looking back, I wish I had shown her more how much she meant to me. I'd like to tell her a lot of things, like how happy I am that from all the people on Lorien it was her to be my Cêpan. Or that I have forgiven her for not teaching and training me. Or that I miss her so much, I don't know how I will be able to take another breath, knowing she won't be here with me anymore.

I shift my weight to the left and let out a ring of bubbles. I watch it disappear towards the surface, then close my eyes again.

Would Adelina be proud of what I've done? What the six of us have accomplished? How I have proven myself, how I didn't give up, even when I was sure we would all die inside that US military base. I try to imagine what she would tell me, now that we have safely made it out of New Mexico. She would probably smile or stroke my hair, maybe pet my shoulder like she had done so many times before. She would definitely give me one of those long hugs I miss so much.

I almost feel like she's with me here now. I can almost see her beautiful, caring face hovering in front of mine, winking at me. I can almost hear her voice, calling out my name, that it's time to go.

But she's dead. Dead. Because of me.

I know, Six told me not to blame myself. But the truth is, I am the only one to blame. When the Mogadorians had come for us in Santa Teresa, I should have insisted on leaving. I should have just taken Adelina by the shoulders and shaken her until she remembered who she really was. Or maybe I should have just packed my things and run away, lead them away from her. It was me they were after, after all.

Instead, she sacrificed herself so that I could live. How will I ever even make it up to the memory of her?

It's hard to imagine what life was like, just a couple of weeks ago. I know it sounds stupid, but even though I've been waiting to reunite with the other Garde for practically my whole life, I wish Ella and Crayton had never arrived, the Mogadorians had never found me and I would still wake up every morning, knowing that Adelina would always be there to catch me.

I sob.

Crying is okay underwater. No one notices your tears, until they have completely mixed with the surrounding water. In the end, only a soft salty taste remains.

A distant voice rings through to me, but I decide to ignore it. It can't reach me here, in my own bubble of water. My last stand of privacy.

A knock on the door and again the voice calling my name. "SEVEN! I'm not going to say this again, GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW!"

I sigh, then I slowly sit up and rub my face.

"Just a second," I shout back and get out of the bath tub. I quickly dry myself with a towel and put on the new clothes Six bought for me earlier. She said that we would go shopping together next time, and I'm actually really excited towards it. I've never gone shopping before, and Six is such a great person to hang out with. It will be nice to do something together that didn't involve killing aliens.

I open the door and Nine storms past me, jumping from one foot to the other.

"Damn it, Seven what the hell have you been doing in there? I'm waiting for like half an hour, and a man's got to do what he's got to do," he says.

"Sorry," I quickly say before rushing out to let him do what a man's got to do. When I close the door behind me I hear him release a relieved sigh.

"Count yourself lucky this time, Seven," he shouts back, and Ella, who has been watching the whole time from the living room, snickers.

I blush and go to the kitchen. The sweet smell of pancakes is in the air, and when I enter, I find John and Sarah in the middle of a kiss. They notice me and Sarah quickly turns back to the pancakes. John nods in my direction. He seems disappointed, though, so I close the door to give them their privacy. I understand him. I know how much they have both missed each other.

I check the clock. Six and Eight should be back in about half an hour. They're the only ones who have been outside the flat for the past two days. Six has her invisibility and Eight can change his form into looking like someone totally else.

Of course it's reasonable that they go together; in case something happens it's best if they are two. But the fact that he's there with her…

After that kiss we had, I thought Eight and I would be more than just the friends we are now. I hoped we could have something like Sarah and John. Having them around while Eight keeps treating me like that kiss never happened hurts.

I sit down on the couch next to Ella. She's drawing a perfect picture of the living room, illuminating every single detail, things I haven't even noticed before. Her view of the world.

I still wonder where she learned to draw like that. I had always thought myself as a good painter, but compared to Ella, My drawings look like a kindergartner's.

"Mind if I watch TV?" I ask, and she nods, then looks up as if I had just ripped her out of a deep thought and quickly shakes her head.

"No, I don't. I mean, I don't mind. I mean, just go on."

I smile and turn the TV on.

After watching a woman advertise for an Ultimate Vacuum 3000 for a while, I start zapping through the channels until I get to a show where some guy is trying to convince another guy to 'suit up'.

Ella looks up just when I want to switch the channel. "Ooooh, I love that show," she yells, so I leave it on.

It is supposed to be a comedy show, but I don't get half of the jokes and Ella has to explain everything to me. Apparently it's about a man telling his kids how he met their mother. And there seems to be eight seasons of it. I don't get how anyone can watch more than half an hour of this, but Ella seems to like it. We never had TVs in Santa Teresa, so I don't mind watching this, even though it's not really interesting and I'm too tired to pay too much attention.

I haven't even realized I have fallen asleep, but I somehow wake up with my head hanging down the back of the armrest. I rub my eyes and yawn, just as the TV shows a close-up of two kids sitting on a couch, quite like the one I'm sitting on. A voice says "And, kids, all this time, your mother was right in front of me."

Ella leans forward, gaping at the TV. I guess this is some sort of a highlight or something.

"All this time, it was…" The voice slowly says, and just then all the lights– And the TV - go out.

Ella raises her arm in a disappointed gesture. "What, that's it?"

Then there's a knock on the main door.

I am stunned. Ella and I exchange a look and I gulp. I hear the kitchen door open and John rushing down the hall, keeping Sarah right behind him. He reaches into the back of his Jeans and produces a dagger out of it. Nine comes rumbling down the stares to the bedrooms and positions himself next to John with a grunt. Ella and I stand up from the couch and run over to them, then John rips the door open.

Leaning against the doorframe stands Eight. He has a deep cut on his forehead that connects his two eyebrows. A stream of think blood runs down his shirt from a bullet hole in his shoulder, and his left arm looks dislocated.

Our eyes meet and he gives me a crooked smile, then he collapses on the door mat.


	3. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

Marina immediately cries out, lunges forward and catches Eight before he hits the ground. She slowly lays him on the terrace in front of our house and carefully presses her hands on his wounds. For a second nothing happens, then he suddenly begins to breathe at double speed. His legs start twitching, and I help Ella to hold them in place. Sweat runs down Eight's face and his eyelids fly open.

Then, the bullet that must have been inside his shoulder all this time suddenly shoots out of the wound and the sore closes.

I watch as his chest rises and falls even faster than before. Once again, I'm amazed at Marina's ability to heal anything in a matter of second. I don't know what Eight would do without her. During the last two days Marina has already saved his life twice. And I only know them for this long.

As Eight's arm pops back into its proper place, I suddenly realize Six is missing. Her and Eight were supposed to get some groceries and a new car together, but now only Eight is back.

Guilt creeps in, together with a presentiment that something really bad is happening to Six right now. I know Eight would never leave her behind if it isn't something serious.

I was so shocked about Eight's horrible condition that I hadn't even thought about Six. What could have happened that he is so badly wounded? I know Six is an incredible fighter, and from what I've seen from Eight he isn't bad either. Plus they have Six's invisibility and Eight's shape shifting.

My mind races, but I decide to give Eight some space and wait until he is fully healed before I ask him what's going on.

Nine isn't as patient as me, though. He shoves Marina aside and grabs Eight by the shoulders. The intense in his voice surprises me.

"Where is she? Where is Six?" He yells at him.

Eight starts coughing and spits blood on the ground beside him. Nine doesn't seem to care.

"Tell me where she is!" He demands, shaking Eight by the arms. Eight groans in pain and I know I have to intervene.

I tackle Nine and pin him down to the floor. He struggles to raise his head me and I can tell he's furious at me. He's way stronger than me, and I can't keep him at bay much longer. But before he gets the chance to throw me off of him, Eight coughs again and we both turn our attention back to him, when he narrowly mutters two words.

"Six…Trees…"

Then Marina bobs up and crawls back to him. She puts her hands on his head and he closes his eyes.

"Trees?", Sarah mumbles behind me.

Marina sends Nine a venomous look, then nods in my direction. "Trees…I saw a Park full of trees on the drive here. Go! Help Six, I'll fix Eight."

"Right," I say and get off Nine. I offer him a hand, but he doesn't even look at it and pushes me away. He pulls himself together, brushes the dust off his shirt and then points at Sarah.

"You. Get the Loric chests and bring them outside. And you," he spits out and points at me. "Come with me."

Then he runs out the house, faster than any normal human can, and disappears down the street

I scowl at the way he talks to Sarah, but it's not the right time for hard feelings. I know Six might be in danger. Any second I waste could be the second she dies.

"Try to contact Six with telepathy," I say to Ella.

Then I kiss Sarah goodbye and turn around. As I speed in the direction Nine has gone off to I hear her shout "be careful!"

I race down the street and catch just a glimpse of Nine disappearing around the corner. I sprint after him and corner yell for him to wait up at the next, but he only speeds up, so there's nothing left to do but follow him.

As I chase him through the streets of the town, I think about the way he reacted to Six' missing. He almost killed Eight right there, trying to find out where she is. I would never expect Nine to care about anyone this much. Except for himself, maybe.

I have no idea where we are by the time I catch up to him. When we got here two days ago , the city had seemed much smaller. I hope Nine knows where he's going, or else it will probably take us hours to find that park Eight spoke about.

Just when I am about to ask Nine where we're heading, I hear two gunshots from close by. Nine and I take the street to our right, from where the shots came. Two more blocks and we reach the park Marina told us about. It is round shaped and its diameter is less than ten yards. Trees grow all over the place, except for a circular clearing in the middle.

No sign of Six.

One more gunshot, then silence. One of the trees rustles and then I see her.

Six is comes jumping down from a treetop near the clearing, her dyed blond hair wafting around her. As she hits the ground a pile of ash slowly sinks down to the ground from the tree she has just stood on. Six looks exhausted and hurriedly turns her head from side to side, as if being hunted, but at least she's alive.

I gasp when I see the cuts and wounds all across her body. Her shirt and trousers are fully covered in a mix of blood and ash, as if she had been dunked in it. When she spots us running towards her, she raises her hand in alarm, shouting at us to stop.

Slithering I come to a stand, just outside the park, but Nine just keeps going until he is in the middle of the clearing, right next to Six. He gives her a hug and almost lifts her off the ground.

"Thank god you're alive, Six! We were so worried", he laughs, and I allow myself a relieved sigh. I start trotting towards them, happy that Six is okay. Well, not exactly okay, she's struggling to stand on her own; but at least she's not dead or got captured by Mogs or what else could have happened.

Nine lets go of her and takes a step back to examine a few of the wounds on her leg, and I get a look at her face. Except for a couple of smaller cuts her head has been left unharmed. With Marina's help she will be alright in just a few minutes. That's a weight off my mind.

I expect Six to laugh and say something witty, like she always does. She'll probably laugh at us for worrying so much, and then she'll keep teasing us about it for the rest of the week.

Instead, when I look into her hazel eyes, I see the exact opposite.

Fear.

Six is afraid.

No, she's terrified. Tears run down her cheeks, but she looks too shocked to speak. From her expression I know something is about to happen. Something bad. Something horrible, horrible enough to frighten even her. Her eyes tell me to stop where I am standing right now, to stay away from the Park. It sends freezing chills down my spine.

In exactly that second, when I ask myself what on earth could scare Six – Six, the bravest person I know – like that, the earth starts shaking.

I am thrown off my feet; inches from where I was standing half a second ago the ground splits into pieces and a gigantic tree root shoot out of the soil. I look around and see the same thing happening all around the park. The roots grow bigger and bigger and intertwine so fast they become blurry, and still more spread out of the ground. The asphalt of the road below me cracks and I jump out of the way just in time to dodge two roots that shatter the entire street. The noise is deafening.

I role off and come to my feet, only to immediately get thrown back down by another root that rises from the crack in the asphalt.

Just as I lift my head again, the rumble disappears, as suddenly as it started.

The tree roots have stopped moving, too, and now I can see they've wrapped themselves in a perfectly round ball around the park; the net of vines is so tight it's impossible to tell how thick it is.

And trapped in the middle of the whole thing Six and Nine scream at the top of their lungs.


	4. Chapter Three

**CHAPTER THREE**

The icy feeling vanishes when my last rip returns to its proper place.

I'm not exactly sure how I broke so many of them. Maybe when the sudden explosion had ripped me from my feet. Maybe when Six had pulled me right back up and I hit my back on that car. Maybe when two of those really big Mogs jumped down from the trees in the park and landed on top of me. Or maybe it was just when Nine shook the hell out of me.

My heart is still racing and I force myself to take long, deep breaths.

"You okay?" Marina asks with a concerned look on her face and helps me stand.

I check my head, then my shoulder. Not even a scratch is left.

"Never felt better. Thanks to you," I answer and grin at her. She blushes and strokes a flick of hair behind her ear. For a second our eyes meet, then we both look away, even though I out of the corner of my eyes I can see she's smiling. I am tempted to hug her. To just hold her in my arms for saving my life once again.

To thank her, just like I should have after all she did for me in that US base two days ago. To tell her how much I'm sorry that I didn't do it earlier.

But Ella brings me back to reality.

"What's going on, Eight?" She tugs at my sleeve. "I tried to get through to Six with telepathy, but I couldn't reach her."

"I don't know…" I say and try to remember what happened. Surprisingly, it doesn't come to me quite that easily. I close my eyes to help me concentrate.

"Let me see…I remember we got separated. About fifty Mogadorian soldiers ambushed us in a park on our way back from the store." I grit my teeth. "Something hit my head and I blacked out. When I woke up, I was in a car. There were about five soldiers with their guns aimed at me, so I thought I'd just wait until there was a bump in the road and then teleport out of the car. It actually worked, only that, just a second before I got away from them, one of them shot me in the shoulder, as he realized what I was about to do.

You can't imagine the pain, getting hit by those Mog guns at point blank range. It's just unbearable. I landed on the street and almost got run over by them. Blind and disoriented from the pain, I managed to turn the car upside down using telekinesis, then I ran here, as much as you can call it running. It was more of a stumble and fall. I didn't know how long I could still make it, without collapsing right on the spot. My shoulder was bleeding pretty seriously, and I felt like I'd faint any moment."

"It's okay," Ella says and pats my hand. I feel odd, being comforted by a twelve year old. Marina gives me another worried glance.

"Do you know what happened to Six?" Ella asks. "You said something about trees when Nine asked you," she reminds me.

Right, there was something about trees. I bite my lip and try to remember. It's something Six said when we ran into that park. Something she kept repeating. Something important… Damn, why is it so hard to remember? Those Mogs must have hit my head really hard. What did Six say?

I can almost feel it on the tip of my tongue, when Sarah clears her throat at the top of the stais to the bedrooms. The small distraction completely rips me out of my thoughts.

I let out a disappointed grunt and scowl at Sarah, but she doesn't notice.

She struggles to drag our Loric chests behind her, and when she tries getting all four of them down the stairs Marina just lift them down with my telekinesis.

"Thanks. I never thought the chests would be so heavy," Sarah puffs and puts her hands on her hips. She's out of breath, just from getting the chests from the bedrooms to the stairs.

"Well you're just human. Of course they're heavy for you," I say, just before realizing this might have come out way more offensively than I had intended. She looks at me with a raised eyebrow and presses her lips together, but doesn't say anything. I take a mental note to be more sensitive around her.

"Anyway, we have to move; Six might still be in danger. Plus, those Mogs will probably know where we are, and I definitely don't want to be here when they come", Marina reminds us. Sarah comes down the stairs. "Neither do I."

"Right, let's go then," I say, and just as I want to bolt down the street, Ella holds me back and motions towards Sarah.

"Oooooh. Yeah, umm…" I studder. I forgot she'll never be able to keep up with Marina, Ella and me, if we run. So much about being sensitive.

"The car it is, then."

 

 

"It's just around the corner," Marina says and suddenly I'm back on full alert.

I look out the car window and immediately recognize the place.

Black smoke rises from a couple burning cars nearby and there is a big hole in the asphalt right next to them. It looks like the road has been struck by a lightning bolt or so. Six.

The surrounding buildings' windows are all shattered from what must have been an explosion, and several burglar alarms ring through the street.

One thing keeps me wonder, though: why doesn't one show up. I mean, with so much noise and commotion going on, the must have been someone who would come outside to check on things. But no, no curious pedestrians, nor any angry neighbours, not even the police.

Earlier ,when Six went to the store, before the Mogs had attacked, the street had been full of people. Now there is not a single person outside – besides us.

We take the last turn and my stomach contracts. I can feel the anger inside me rise again. I'm angry about the Mogadorians ambushing us so cowardly, but mostly angry at myself, for letting them catch me off guard.

This time it's going to be different, though. This time I'm prepared. I'm unflappable, no matter what. An army of Mogs? No problem. Hordes of Piken and Krauls? Piece of cake. I'm even geared up for Setrákus Ra.

But when we turn around the corner, my heart still skips a beat.

"Did we take a wrong turn?" Ella asks and I don't think I can answer, even if I tried to. In fact, I don't think I will ever be able to speak again. My jaw must have dropped by at least ten feet. I don't know if I can trust my eyes. What I see just doesn't make sense.

Because in front of us there is no park.

Instead, there is a gigantic dome of what appears to be tree roots, reaching up higher than the surrounding buildings.

The car stops with squealing tires. I rip the door open and stumble out.

It looks like the ball of roots literally grew out of the ground. Confusion smacks me in the face.

"What the hell happened here?" I hear Ella ask from the other side of the car. A moment of silence passes, as no one knows the answer.

"Is that John?" Marina suddenly asks and points towards the structure. Only now do I notice the single silhouette standing all alone in front of the enormous dome.

"John!" Sarah cries out and starts running towards him. He turns around, but keeps his head low. I teleport right beside him.

"Is everything alright? What happened? What is this thing?" I ask him, but I'm not sure he is even listening. He keeps his gaze on his feet.

"I… I couldn't do anything. I just… It just…" He mumbles.

"Just what?" I urge him. He looks up and it seems he only realizes I'm here now.

"It just grew. These roots just suddenly spouted out of the ground. I couldn't…" He gulps before continuing. "I couldn't do anything. One moment, I could still see Six and Nine in the park, and the next second… _this_ just came out of nowhere. Eight, I think… I think they're still inside…I think… I think Six knew, and now they're still inside!"

And then it hits me. What Six said when we ran into the park. The missing piece of memory. She had pointed at a Mog that was pouring vials of liquid over the ground near the trees at the edge of the park. It immediately got soaked into the earth.

'I know that stuff. I've seen a scientist use it in a lab in the military base, just before I got captured.' She said. And then she shouted something that got drowned by the noise the Mogs made. All I understood was 'the trees!', which she kept yelling at me, as if I knew what she meant.

Well, I do now.

John sniffs and I put my arm around his shoulder. He seems to be in shock.

"Hey! It's okay, John," I say. "It's not your fault."

It's mine. The bitterness of this insight makes me even more furious. I should have understood what Six had meant back then. I should have been there with her. I could have teleported both of us out.

But instead I just got captured by the Mogs.

The others come running to us and Sarah throws her arms around John. He finally awakes from his stiffness and kisses her on the cheek. They stay like that for a moment, holding each other in their arms.

Then John pulls away and Sarah suddenly gasps.

Two red dots, the ones sniper rifles have for making aiming easier, are hovering on John's forehead.

And as I'm trying to figure out what is happening, a voice behind us shouts two words.

"Don't. Move."


	5. Chapter Four

**CHAPTER FOUR**

I never understood what 'my heart leaps into my throat' really means. Up until now.

When your throat is so tight from fear, you almost choke on it; when a sudden, nightmarish terror grabs you by the neck and doesn't let you go; when the Goosebumps makes your hair stand on end so badly, you are afraid it might just fall off.

That's how I feel right now.

Red dots have appeared on Ella's and Eight's heads, even on Sarah's.

My back is turned away the direction the lasers must be coming from, but I'm sure they are aiming at me as well. I don't dare to breathe.

"One move and we take you out, without hesitation," the voice says again and I think I recognize it.

Silence. The wind makes an unnatural cracking noise when it hits the tree roots. I try to find out which direction the voice came from, but it's hard to tell.

Then I hear a single person's footsteps on the road behind me.

"You all are under arrest," the person formally says and this time know who it is. John's enraged expression confirms my suspicions.

"What's up, Agent Walker?" Eight says in a mocking voice and looks past me. "How's your arm doing?"

I can't help but grin, though I'm still terrified as hell. Even when facing death, Eight still is the same playful, cheerful boy I know.

There's an angry snort behind me and I finally turn around, very slowly, careful not to make any quick movements.

And here she is, special FBI agent Walker as she lives and breathes, one hand in a sling, the other one around a pistol. Her bruised face is almost as red with hate and anger as her hair. She limps with her right leg and seems to have trouble to keep her back straight. Our encounter two days ago must have been a bit too much for her.

"Careful, boy! You got thirty rifles on your head right now. If I were you, I wouldn't put my foot into my mouth."

Without moving my head, I try to spot the snipers she's talking about. They must be hiding in the surrounding buildings, but I can't see where. I wonder if I could stop the bullets in time, if they started shooting at us. Would my telekinesis be enough, if I don't know where the shots come from?

"Don't even think about trying anything. These are the best soldiers the American military has. One wrong step and I promise you, you will be dead before you can even raise your arm," Walker says, as if she knows exactly what I'm thinking.

John isn't impressed, though.

"I remember you weren't that confident last time we met," he shouts. "Where has your whining and pleading gone?"

I'm not sure mocking her is the right thing to do, when our life depends on her, but at least John is back to his old self.

Agent Walker nervously glances over her shoulder, then scowls at us in a way that sends icy chills down my spine.

"I don't know what you're talking about," She hisses.

"You don't?" Eight raises and eyebrow. "Really? You don't remember begging for your life? Nothing?"

She takes another quick look behind her, as if to make sure no one else is listening.

"You are talking bullshit! That never happened."

Her voice cracks and I wince. The fact that she's denying our encounter can only mean one thing. She either actually got hit really hard on the head or she is trying to hide it from someone. Her troops maybe, or maybe someone way more inconvenient. My nerves tense.

' _Marina! Marina, do you hear me?'_ I suddenly hear Ella saying in my head, and it totally takes me by surprise. Before I can hold it back, an alarmed scream escapes my throat.

I can almost feel the thirty red dots move to my head. I flinch and instinctively close my eyes, waiting for the bullets to hit me, but nothing happens.

Of course not, those soldiers are trained well enough to not just shoot me without the command to. Walker gives me a hateful stare, then shakes her head and shrugs.

I dare to breathe again.

' _Well, I guess you did hear me,'_ I hear Ella in my head again. I'm prepared for it this time, but I still have to suppress another scream. Having another voice in my head just feels… wrong.

' _Sorry,'_ I say in my thoughts. _' it's just that you've never communicated with me over telepathy. I didn't even know it is possible for you to reach anyone but Six and John..'_

' _Yeah, neither did I. Guess I'm getting better.'_

"Enough with the talking," Walker says and at first I think she means Ella's and my telepathic conversation.

The fear is getting the best of me. I bite my lip and force myself to stay focused.

"Time to proceed to action. And remember, no sudden moves, or you can kiss your heads goodbye" Agent Walker says as she puts her pistol away into a holster at her hip. She starts heading over, getting out five pairs of handcuffs from the pockets of her jacket.

"Hands up, all of you, and keep them there!" She orders.

' _What are we going to do?'_ I ask Ella in my thoughts, hoping she still has the telepathic link up. It takes her a second to answer.

' _I'm talking to Sarah, Eight and John right now. Eight thinks he can teleport us out of here.'_

' _All five of us?'_ I say doubtfully. The last time he tried teleporting more than two people at once, one of them landed in a desert and almost died. Plus, teleporting always makes me feel sick, and I'm not eager to do it again.

On the other hand, what choice do we have? There's only one way out of this situation. And I'd do anything to just finally get away from this place, these invisible soldiers, and especially from Walker. She's starting to really scare me.

' _Alright, just tell him to hurry please.'_ Isay in thoughts.

' _Hold on,'_ Ella tells me.

Hold on, as if it is that easy. My knees have started shaking and I can tell I'm not far away from fainting. The weight of the last weeks, the loss of so many good friends and the lack of sleep is wearing me down.

Agent Walker is about ten feet away from me when Ella contacts me again.

' _Okay. On the count of five we all grab each other by the hand, so that Eight can teleport. Ready?'_

I take a deep breath, then nod. Walker has reached us.

' _One,'_ Ella says.

The FBI agent stops next to John.

' _Two.'_

She places a pair of handcuffs around his wrists, and he lets it happen without resistance. Walker smiles, pleased with herself, then moves on to Sarah.

' _Three.'_

I hear a silent click from John's handcuffs. I hope Walker didn't notice he opened them right back up, but she is too busy celebrating her little triumph.

' _Four.'_

I take in my surroundings; the buildings around the park – or more like what's left of the park; the shattered windows; the smoking cars; the tree roots; the wind in my hair. I soak it all up and don't let it go. For all I know, it might be the last thing I will ever see.

Somewhere out there, thirty sniper rifles are aimed at me right now.

The hopelessness of the whole situation fully hits me.

Who am I kidding? This is suicide. There's no way we're all getting out of here alive. No possible way… And even if we do, Six and Nine will still be lost, trapped inside this giant ball of roots.

I have failed.

I have failed Adelina. I have failed the Loric. And worst of all I have failed my friends.

Up high in the sky, a bird cries out, loud and long. It feels like my death sentence.

' _Five.'_


	6. Chapter Five

**CHAPTER FIVE**

Time seems to slow down the moment Ella gives us the signal. Everything around me seems to move in slow motion.

I watch as John shoves Agent Walker away from Sarah so hard, she goes flying in a spectacularly wide arc and hits the wall of a building about twenty yards away. Guess we won't be seeing much of her anymore.

The buildings all around the park come alive as a sudden burst of gunfire breaks through their windows. Must be where the snipers have been hiding all along.

Shrieking Gunshots ring in my ears and I suppress the urge to seal them with my hands. I'll be needing my hands to teleport us out of here.

I take a deep breath and try to concentrate at the incoming bullets. My throat gets dry and my stomach tenses up from nervousness.

I redirect a couple of the bullets with telekinesis so they hit the road around us, but Walker was right: Even with the help of John and Marina, it's impossible to stop them all. There's just too many of them coming from too many different angles.

To my left, John steps in front of Sarah to protect her from the gunshots. He says something I can't understand over the deafening noise of the gunshots, then he quickly pulls her to us and they both grab hold of my left hand

A bullet races past my cheek and I flinch. Another one brushes my biceps. I try to hold off as many as possible, but more and more slip through my defence.

Marina dive towards me, grabbing my right hand.

I turn my head to Ella, the only one still missing. Keeping her head low, tucked up between her arms, she is bolting towards us at full speed. She's only fifteen feet away One or two more seconds until she will reach us.

Then the first bullet hits her.

I didn't see this one coming, or else I would have stopped it at all cost. I gasp, but I hesitate to run towards her. If I help her, it means I'll turn my back to at least half of all those snipers. Once I can't see where the shots come from, I won't be able to reflect them and we will get crushed by the soldiers.

Helplessly, I watch as a jolt shakes Ella's little body and she's blown off her feet like a leaf in the wind. She hits the ground and skids to a halt.

Marina cries out and I can tell there's nothing she wants more than to come to Ella's aid, but I hold her back.

"I need you here," I shout at her. "We need you to redirect the bullets with us. Ella will need to take care of herself."

As cruel as it sounds, I know it's the only way. I can't let go of Marina's hand, or else we will all be dead in a matter of seconds.

Ella manages to sit up, staring at the gaping hole in her chest. The bullet got her just underneath the heart, and a stream of blood runs down her shirt. Every move seems to cause her unbearable pain.

Yet, she struggles to her feet.

The effort it must take her is unimaginable, but she starts stumbling towards us, groaning in agony with every step she makes. Her expressions show unbearable suffering and torture, but still, she keeps going, pressing her hands on the wound in her chest.

It amazes me how she doesn't give up yet. Maybe she can still make it. Only a few more steps. I could teleport all of us and then Marina would be able to heal her.

The second bullet hits Ella in the leg.

I hear the cracking noise as it breaks her shin bone. She twists her ankle and falls over, landing head first.

Marina screams at me to let her go, to let her help Ella. She desperately tries to wrench from my grip around her hand, but I can't let go. If I do, the blaze of gunfire will have her killed before she will even halfway reach her. I can't risk losing her, too. I'll never forgive myself.

Ella pants for breath as she spits out blood to the side.

She tries to get up, yelping as she tries shifting her weight to the broken leg. She immediately drops back to her knees.

A single tear rolls out of her eyes, creating tiny cracks in the layer of dirt on her face. It breaks my heart to see her like this and not to be able to do anything about it.

She lies down and tries pulling herself forward with her hands, desperately trying to somehow move towards us

Her unswerving will can't be broken, and the fact that she doesn't give up hurts me even more. Pretty much anyone would just surrender by now; simply faint from the pain and the hopelessness of the situation.

But not Ella.

Her courage and bravery compared to me - being too damn scared to even help her when she shows such strength - makes me want to crawl away into a hole of shame and never come out again.

When the third bullet hits Ella in the shoulder she collapses on the spot.

I can't hold Marina back anymore. She escapes my grasp and dashes towards Ella.

I start rushing after her, when I see a bullet incoming from the corner of my eyes. I immediately know it will hit Marina if she keeps running at exactly that speed. I'm way too upset right now to bring up enough concentration to stop such a small thing.

All I have is a fraction of a second to decide what to do.

If we run over to Ella, we will all be shot in the back by the time we reach her. Those soldiers are trained way better than the ones I've fought against before. Their aim is so accurate, we would all be dead right now if it weren't for our telekinesis.

If I run after Marina and teleport her out, then come back for John and Sarah, they'll probably be perforated by then.

If I get John and Sarah out first, Marina will be dead in a matter of seconds.

My heart pounds so hard it might just explode any second.

I think about what life was like only an hour ago, when all of us still were together in our little apartment.

We had expected the action to be over, at least for a little while. We had allowed ourselves to relax, we had let our guard down and we had got too comfortable, even though we knew our enemies would come after us.

Our laziness is why we got into this whole mess in the first place. It makes me want to slap myself in the face, but there's no time for that.

In fact, there's no time for anything, but this one decision.

The Dilemma rips me apart. I try to think of something, anything that could help me make this choice. Anything that could tell me what to do. What's wrong and what's right.

Ella raises her head, her big, brown, innocent eyes focused on mine. They reflect everything I'm feeling right now: Despair. Anger. Regret.

But there's something else, too. Hope.

Hope for the rest of us to still escape, to still make it out of here.

In a final effort, she motions towards Marina with her head and mouths 'Go!'

A last bullet hits her neck and she stops moving.

The world around me goes silent. All the gunshots, Marina's shouting, even my own heartbeat gets muted.

And I know what I have to do.

I yank John and Sarah forward towards Marina while pulling her back with my telekinesis.

Now that I'm not deflecting any gunshots at all, Nothing stands between the hail of bullets and us. John and I groan at the same time as we are hit multiple times, but we keep going.

My hand is shivering so intensely when I reach out for Marina that I miss. On the second try I get hold of her arm. She yells at me to let go, but I don't. It's what Ella wanted me to do.

I allow myself one last glance at Ella. Lying on the dusty road, her tiny, gentle features look so peaceful, you could mistake her for sleeping.

With a lump in my throat I close my eyes and teleport us out of here.


	7. Chapter Six

**CHAPTER SIX**

Fifteen people in a jungle. Six are invisible, nine are upside down.

They sit in a circle around some bluishly glowing campfire, their shadows getting lost in the darkness around them.

Suddenly the ground cracks and erupts in an explosion of ash. Enormous brown snakes sprout out of the cracks and hiss at the people around the campfire. Each of the snakes has hundreds of heads that branch out in all directions, just like that creature in ancient Greek mythology – I always forget the name.

Only these things have something else about them, something botanical. They remind me of big branches, or tree roots…

For a moment, the snakes hover high above the people's heads, menacing silhouettes in the darkness. Then they collapse down on the fifteen people.

Before anyone can react, the creatures wrap themselves around the campfire-people until no one can move. They squeeze so tightly, that breathing gets harder and harder, and one after the other the fifteen faint. The campfire gets extinguished and the whole scene turns black.

I realize none of this makes any sense at all and wake up.

I keep my eyes closed, enjoying the last moments before I remember what happened before I fell asleep. It can't be something good, that's for sure.

The air smells of electricity, and I have a metallic taste in my mouth. There's a steady buzz close by, like from high voltage.

I take a deep breath, then try to think back to the latest turns of fate.

Let me see, John, Nine, me and the others were in that military base in a desert in New Mexico. We fought all those Mogs and Setrákus Ra, then they suddenly disappeared. With the whole base empty, we stole a car and drove all the way up to Michigan; surprisingly enough, there were no further incidents.

Until we got to that small town near St. Ignace, I think and my heart skips a beat.

Oh god, now I remember. The Mogs' ambush. I walked right into their trap, and there was nothing I could do about it. The fight with the hordes of alien soldiers, they were all just there for one reason: to keep me inside that park, to distract me from the real threat. The tree roots, John's and Nine's appearance just before it happened, me warning them, John staying out and Nine running right into the trap; it all comes back to me at this very moment.

With a jerk I open my eyes.

A shimmering blue light just like the one in my dream dazzles me. For a second I'm confused and pinch myself in the arm, just to make sure I'm not sleeping anymore.

Yes, fully awake.

I sit up way too fast and a fierce pain shoots through my ribcage. My head is spinning, as if I had just taken a rollercoaster ride.

I can still feel it in my bones, the shock and the horror from when the ground shook and those giant roots wrapped themselves around me. At first they had only been at my ankles, to hold me in place. When I started flailing, they crawled up all around me and squeezed so hard I couldn't breathe anymore.

My whole body aches, and it literally feels as if I got pelted several times.

With a loud groan I turn my head and look around.

I'm in some sort of hall. The floor is made of plain, polished marble, which feels cold under my bare feet. The dazzling blue light that stung into my eyes comes from all around me. It takes a while until I get used to the brightness.

I am surrounded by a wall of this strange blue light. Squinting my eyes I can make out blurred movements on its surface. Long, circular shapes, racing around the bluely glowing wall.

It's beautiful and frightening at the same time, but there's something calming, mesmerizing about it.

I slowly crawl towards the light, too dizzy to stand up and walk. When it's only inches away, my hands reach out towards the light as if of their own accord.

The wall radiates an oddly inconvenient heat the closer I get, but I somehow can't force myself to stop. The blurry glow pulls me in like a mot in the light.

Just a second before I touch the blue surface, someone behind me whispers "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

I flinch and turn around, trying to find out where the voice came from, but I can't see anyone in the room.

"Up here," the person says.

I raise my head and spot Nine, cowering upside down on the ceiling.

"Finally woke up, huh?" He says and jumps down to me, doing half a front flip so he lands on his feet. Pleased with himself, he raises his arms and gestures towards the glowing wall.

"This, my dear Six, is a force field. If you touch it you will be out for at least another ten hours."

"Ten hours?" I say, my mind trying to process what this means. How long have I been out? What happened during that time? Are the others okay?

"Where are we?" I ask Nine.

"I can't tell you for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's definitely no Mog base. All the guards I've seen up until now were human."

"They work together, have you forgotten? The government and the Mogs, they're in cahoots together."

"That's the point, Six. Maybe things aren't quite as obivous as they seem. The whole thing sucks out loud," he says and keeps his gaze on the blue wall. "Our captors might have alien technology, but they're definitely not Mogs."

"But it were the Mogs who attacked us in the park." I argue.

"Maybe the humans were using them as bait, to get you into that trap. I mean, I'm sure Setrákus Ra would have wanted us to be brought directly to him, or at least into a Mog base. He wouldn't trust the government with such an important task."

I let that sink in. What Nine's saying does make sense somehow, but I'm not really convinced.

"So we don't know where we are, neither what happened to the others. Got any idea on how we're going to get out of here?" I ask.

Nine sits down next to me and I look at him. His usually neat appearance has been reduced to a bruised, wounded, dirt-covered boy, his long black hair ruffled and full with dirt. He looks almost as bad as I feel, but he still is as self-confident as ever.

"Don't know. Well, this force field thing is telekinesis proof. And you can't break through it, believe me, I've tried many times."

I tilt my head. The way he says it makes me wonder how often he has faced such force fields before.

"And there's no hole in it? How are they going to bring us water and food?" I ask.

"Well, don't ask me, they haven't brought any yet, and I'm not sure if they are planning to."

"What about the floor and the ceiling."

He gazes at me for a second. "What exactly do you want to do? Punch a hole in it and escape, like in those westerns?"

"Kind of, yeah, or do you have a better idea?" I answer.

He looks me in the eyes for a moment, then looks away.

"Good luck trying," he puffs and lies down on his back, his arms folded under his head.

"So you suggest we just sit here and do nothing?" I ask, but he only shrugs. His indifference starts bugging me.

"Seriously now, Nine, you're the one who always drives us to act. What do you want to do?"

Again, he shrugs and shakes his head.

"How can you possibly be so calm? I mean, we don't know where we are, or who is keeping us prisoners, or how and when we're going to get out. We don't know what happened to John and the others. Hell, we don't even know if they're alive.

And you, you are just lying here, not even giving a damn about any of this. Do you even care about anybody except for yourself?" I rant.

Nine doesn't react, I'm not even sure he's listening to me. He just keeps staring at the ceiling. Now I'm really mad.

"You don't even know how helpless you are," I yell at him, and that's when he's had enough.

"You think so?" he says and suddenly sits up. He grabs my wrist and forces me to turn around to him.

"You really think so? You think I wouldn't do anything, _anything_ , to get out of here and find the others? Do you even know what you are talking about?" He roars at me, and his voice is so full of emotions he must have kept back for a far too long time, that I feel sorry for shouting at him.

"Do you even know who you are talking to?" He yells. "Has John ever told you where he found me, when you were in Spain, looking for Seven?"

"He said you were…" I begin, but he interrupts me.

"In a Mog cave, yeah. In a prison. And for how long, my dear Six? For. A. Whole. Goddamn. _Year_!" He yells, stressing every single word. I blink in irritation.

"I'm sorry, Nine I didn't…" I start saying, but again he doesn't let me finish my sentence.

"Didn't what, Six? Didn't _what_? Didn't think I had a hard life of my own? Do you believe you're the only one who went through horrible things in all these years we spent on this planet? Do you think you are the only one who had to witness his loved ones getting murdered right in front of your eyes, while the only thing you can do is watch?"

Tears form in the back of my eyes, and I try to clear my throat, but Nine doesn't leave me the chance.

"You think we are helpless right now? You think we are? Let me tell you a story about being goddamn _helpless_ ," he spits out the word as if to get rid of a bad memory.

"Pretty much a year before the day John and Sam came to that Mog cave and busted me out, I loved a girl. A girl so smart, cute and beautiful you can't even imagine. And what happened, my dear Six?

The Mogs kidnapped her parents, forced her to turn me in to save them. When the Mogs had me and she finally got her parents back, they killed her." His eyes glow from a frightening amount of fury.

"Oh, but they did not only kill her, they ripped her to pieces. And they forced me to watch every second of it.

Killing her had no sense. She had played her part. They could have just let her walk away.

They didn't benefit from her death. They didn't do it for a greater cause. The only reason they killed her was for their own amusement.

So they could make me suffer. So they could see the look on my face when it happened. So that I would have all the time in world to replay the scene in my mind over and over again in all the time I helplessly sat in my prison cell.

Now, my dear Six, I hope you understand you don't have a clue what helpless means."

His face is red and distorted from anger. I can't believe what he just told me.

He gulps loudly, I don't dare to breathe, and exactly in that moment a hole in the bluely shining wall appears and special FBI agent Walker steps through it.

She walks on crutches and a big bandage is wrapped around her head, but she doesn't seem to care about her injuries. There's a disturbing, almost insane look in her eyes. Her mouth is stretched to a triumphant, diabolic grin.

"Welcome, Number six and nine," she says in a bittersweet tone. "I hope you are enjoying your stay."

And then, as if she can't hold it back any longer, she blurts out a sentence that makes the lump in my throat feel twice as big.

"We have Number five."


	8. Chapter Seven

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

Marina hasn't said a single word since we got on the train.

All alone in her seat row she sits as far away from me as possible, her legs pulled up to her body, her arms wrapped around them. She leans her head against the window, lost in thoughts, the eyes halfway closed. Every now and then it looks like she's fallen asleep, but then she sighs and shifts her position.

Her usually soft expressions have turned into a grimace of despair and anger, anger at me. The rosy colour of her cheeks has disappeared, now she's as pale as a corpse. Even though mentioning corpses probably isn't the best idea right now.

Of course, Marina blames me for Ella's death. If I had let Marina go to help her, who knows, maybe Ella would still be with us now. Who knows?

Well, I do. I am one hundred percent sure that not only Ella wouldn't be here right now; Marina would have been killed by the soldiers before she would even get the chance to heal Ella.

Remembering the image of Ella lying on the road near the park feels like I'm being stabbed in the stomach. Brave little Ella, who never harms a fly.

Marina sobs and I shake my head. A few seats in front of me, John and Sarah have fallen asleep long ago. They're all cuddled up, leaning their heads against each other. John has his arms around Sarah's shoulders while she hugs his chest.

Seeing them slumbering so peacefully side by side with Marina being all alone just a few feet away gives me a heartache.

There's nothing I'd like to do more right now than to just walk over to her and apologize. To tell her how sorry I am about Ella. I know how much she meant to Marina. Well, she meant a lot to all of us. After all, she was one of the last of the Loric. But to Marina, she was even more, almost like a little sister.

I want to go over there sit down beside her, but I just can't get myself to.

Half an hour passes, and a loudspeaker announcement tells us that we will be at the Canadian border soon. I start feeling thirsty, so I decide to go and get something in the dining car.

I walk past Marina, who doesn't even appreciate me of a view. Gritting her teeth, she stubbornly keeps staring out the window. Like a dying duck in a thunderstorm I open the door to the next car.

The dining car is on the other end of the train, and on my way I pass a few other passengers; not too many, after all it's two in the morning, but I still try keeping my head low.

Pictures of John, Nine and Six are all over the news, warning the population about those 'dangerous terrorists'. Most of them aren't exactly accurate and I haven't seen any about the rest of us, but I'm pretty sure that after our encounter with the soldiers they figured out what we all look like. It's best to just go by unnoticed.

When I reach the dining car, a silent rain begins to fall. The seller at the kiosk is a big, half-bald guy with a short goatee. He seems to be bored out of his mind, as except for me there's only two other costumers in the whole car, an older couple sitting at a table.

I buy two bottles of water, a bar of chocolate, and today's newspaper.

"That's nine dollars," the seller tells me and while he turns around to bring me my order, he shouts over his shoulder "Those terrorists aren't going to give up so easily, huh?"

"I'm sorry?" I say irritatedly. The seller throws the newspaper on the counter and points at the headline of the main page.

"There, read!" He says and scratches his nose.

'Terrorist attack in Michigan,' it says in big red letters. I swallow so hard I start coughing. There's a picture of the park Six and I got ambushed in. Someone has burnt down the giant ball of tree roots – probably the soldiers – and now the whole scene is one whole image of destruction. The buildings around the park have taken heavy damage from the fire, almost all the windows are shattered, and there still is smoke rising from some exploded cars to the right. The road is perforated from all the bullets the soldiers fired at us.

There's no sign of Ella, neither of Six and Nine. I just hope they weren't inside the root cage anymore when the fire started. The thought of it drains all the colour from my face.

"You okay?" The seller asks with a worried look at me. I compose myself and nod.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just…" I cough again, trying to find an excuse for reacting in that way.

"It's just, I, umm, grew up in that town. I used to walk through this park every day, and now it's… gone." I try to let out a convincing sob.

"Aww, that's awful. So sorry to hear that," he says in a sympathetic voice. "That must be shocking for you."

I nod, not really listening. There's an article about the incident on page three, and I have to tell the others, so I thank the seller, who gives me a encouraging pat on the shoulder, pay for the groceries and head back towards the door.

When I walk past the table with the couple, I suddenly notice they are watching me closely. I stop dead in my track and glance at them out of the corner of my eyes.

Something's obviously wrong with them. The woman is muffled up in a long, thick coat. From her nose downwards her strangely pale face is buried in a colourful scarf and she wears giant sunglasses. The only visible part of her body is her long black hair.

The man has grey hair, brown eyes and almost no eyebrows. There are purple scars all over his hollow cheeks. He is wearing nothing but sweatpants and a tank top, revealing more scars on his arms.

I hold my breath as he stands up right in front of me. My heart is racing while I feverishly think about what I should do.

"Is my coffee done yet," the man says aloud without taking his eyes off me.

"Of course, sir. Want me to bring it to you?" I hear the seller answer from behind me.

"No, it's fine, I'll go get it myself", the man says and starts heading towards the counter. When he comes close to me, my whole body tenses and I prepare myself for the worst.

I'm ready to fight him. I'm ready to smash him into the next wall with telekinesis. I'm ready to do everything needed to protect myself as soon as he makes a wrong move.

He is so close now I can smell him. A mix of noble perfume and sweat rises to my nose.

Some of his scars catch my eye. They seem fresh, not fully healed, as if they have just recently been inflicted.

Another step and he'll be close enough to attack me. I bend one leg and take a defensive stance.

Then he is only one inch away from me, and that's when something confusing happens.

Instead of attacking, he trips over my right leg and falls to the ground.

"Malcolm, are you okay?" The woman shouts in a strangely pitched voice and dashes forward to help him up. Flummoxedly I watch as the man leans on her and holds his head. While he embarrassedly looks around, I try to understand what on earth just happened. Kind of the opposite of what I expected.

"Thank you, Mary." The says to the woman, then turns to me.

"I am terribly sorry, young man," he says. "I must not have seen you there." Which is funny, as he has been observing me for as long as I've been in the car.

"My bad," I mutter, eager to get away fast. I give the couple a short apologizing smile and quickly walk out the door. Only then do I relax and allow myself a relieved sigh.

On my way back I wonder why I overreacted so badly. After all, it was just an old couple, and that's really not what I should be afraid of. Okay, the woman did look a bit strange and suspicious, but who am I to judge human fashion.

I seriously expected that frail old man to attack me. I shake my head. Now I can only laugh about myself. I'm seeing enemies in everyone and everything. After we find Six and Nine, we really need some time off, maybe go somewhere safe and relax for a while.

I bite my tongue when I suddenly remember it was the illusion of safety that caused Ella's death and Six' and Nine's capture. We had thought ourselves safe for once, and look what it had lead us to.

Well, it's our own fault. Just as it had been, back when my Cêpan Reynolds died. It's always the same. You get used to a certain situation, try to make the best of it, and then, _bam_ , something terrible happens.

We will never be safe, I sourly realize. Not until the last Mogadorian has been reduced to a pile of ash.

I reach our car, where John and Sarah still are asleep and Marina still stares out the window, all alone. I take a deep breath and, before I can reconsider it, I sit down next to her. She looks at me with those deep, thoughtful eyes, and I can almost feel the anger spark out of them.

"Hey," I say, and she turns away from me. I sigh but don't give it up yet.

"Want some water?" I ask and hold up one of the bottles I bought. Marina looks at it for a moment.

"No water in the world can make it up," she silently mutters and I frown.

"Listen, Marina," I begin, trying to find the right words for what I want to tell her. "I know what I did when they opened fire on us is unforgivable. After all the times you saved my life I just disrespected you, I held you back against your will and worst of all I kept you from helping Ella."

Only mentioning Ella's name makes Marina sob again, and I feel like the worst person in the world.

"This probably sound like a really, really bad excuse, but I was trying to protect you. All I did was because I didn't want to lose you. I was too damn afraid to let you go, because I was sure you'd die the second I would.

Maybe, if I had let you be at her side right away, there would have been a way to save her. And yes, in that case it's my fault she's dead now."

Saying it out loud makes my throat feel completely dry and rough. She stares at me with a raised eyebrow, tilting her head. I can tell she's still as angry as before, but at least she's listening.

"Yes, in that case I am the only one there is to blame and your anger is justified. But, and it kills me from the inside, if I had the choice again, if I had to decide whether I would give you the chance of saving Ella at the risk of losing you own life, I still would never let you go." I hold her gaze for as long as I can.

"You don't have to understand me, or even forgive me," I say and my voice cracks. "I just wanted you to know."

I feebly stand up and with hanging arms I walk over to the seat row I sat in earlier.

I feel exhausted, as if all the energy just got drained out of me, together with what I said to Marina.

The scene at the park jumps to my mind. Too tired to block it out, I go through it all again. It's like watching a movie: John shoving agent Walker away, the soldiers engaging fire on us, Ella getting hit, Marina screaming at me, trying to help her. My limbs clench as I can't shake off the images.

'Go,' Ella had said when she knew all hope for her was lost. Go. She knew it was too late for her, but she wanted to still save us. Heroic last words for a twelve year old.

I had followed Ella's last will and teleported all of us about two blocks away from the park. Marina had screamed and cried and begged me to take her back. When she realized I wouldn't, she had started running back. I had grabbed her with telekinesis, stopped her in the middle of two steps and dragged her with us. At first she had tried to resist, partly with her own telekinesis, partly just flailing. As I have been training my legacies for years and she hardly ever had any practise, she soon gave up and fell into a furious silence.

A movement to my side makes me jump. I'm relieved it's just Marina coming towards me. Actually, I'm more than relieved, I'm hopeful.

She rubs her tear-stained eyes and presses her lips together so they form a thin line. Clearing her throat examines me, then – to my surprise - sits down next to me.

For a while, she doesn't say anything. The train rushes by rivers and small villages. The constant, silent rain falls down and hundreds of raindrops pound against the windows.

"I forgive you," Marina finally says and looks at me with sad eyes.

"You do?" I raise both eyebrows, then smile at her. "Umm, wow, thanks. That's awesome!"

She looks down at her feet and tugs a flick of hair behind her ear.

"I came to the conclusion that it's not your fault. I can't just blame you, knowing you only tried to protect me. I mean, you weren't the one who fired those bullets," she says in a steady voice. "And I'm sorry for being so mad at you. I was just so caught up in the horror of Ella's death and you dragging me away from her that I forgot you only tried to help."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," I say and she tries to smile, but all she manages is a suppressed sob. She presses her eyelids together, trying to hold back another wave of tears, and I patiently wait until she has composed herself.

"Eight," Marina says after a moment, her voice still shaking. "I… I thought about it. About Ella's death." She stops and shakes her head. "I mean, of course I thought about it, I can hardly think of anything else." She rests her head on her elbows and gazes out the window. "It doesn't make sense. I mean, why isn't there another scar on our ankles now? If she died, another scar must have appeared right away, right?"

I sigh and look at her. I had thought about that, too. When we got to earth and the charm to protect us form the Mogadorians had been cast, it also included this sort of warning system. If one of the remaining Garde died, a mark with his or her Loric number would burn itself into our legs.

Ella is one of the remaining Garde, which means there should be four scars now. The thing is, Ella wasn't there when the charm had been cast, and as much as I want to, I can't believe she is part of the spell.

The fact that no scar has appeared doesn't have to mean anything.

But I don't have the heart to take away that last piece of hope Marina has left.

So I just nod.

"That means she must still be alive," Marina says and I nod again. She closes her eyes, leaning her head back. Despite the despair of the situation, a wide grin slowly forms on her face.

And after all that happened Marina deserves that bit of false hope.


	9. Chapter Eight

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

Twenty armed men take me to my cell, and I can almost sense the twenty guns pointed at my head.

It's a strange feeling, being at the mercy of someone who thinks you are a dangerous alien. Of someone, who is so damn scared that he will pull the trigger at your slightest move. Who is so damn nervous that he flinches every time you take a breath.

I'm still not sure what upset them so much. Well, the part about being a dangerous alien may be true, but still, that's no reason to treat me like that. I mean, what have I ever done wrong?

Okay, so I knocked out about fifty soldiers in the last couple of hours, but, hey, who could blame me? After all, everyone has days like this sometimes.

One of those days, when you get shot down and captured, thrown into a secret military underground prison, escape your cell, get shot down and captured again, wake up in the same damn cell, escape it for a second time, get tasered and drugged, black out, wake up in a different cell, escape it again, get captured for the fourth time in one day and then get dragged down endless stairs and corridors.

I'm sure everyone can relate.

Each time I escape there's more guards, more guns aimed at me. It's ridiculous, but I get the feeling they have an endless supply of soldiers down here. You'd think the US government has more important things to send them to, but no, leave it to the military to station hundreds of men down in a secret, hidden underground base.

The funny thing is how it doesn't actally matter how many men they send. Once I unleash my legacies, it will take way more than some humans to keep me under control.

The fact that I don't just break those shackles around my wrists and ankles, throw the men that push me forward against the tunnel walls and bolt back up all the way has three reasons:

Firstly, all my guards are human. They may have fired at me multiple times, but after all they're just following orders. Maybe I'll have a word with whoever gave those orders, talk some sense into them, show them I'm not the real enemy, but nothing more. It's not the humans I want, it's the Mogadorians.

Secondly, if I used my powers right here, in this narrow tunnel about a mile under the surface, the whole structure would probably collapse on top of me and I'm not sure if I would survive the impact, not to mention I have no idea how to get out of here.

And thirdly, I mustn't compromise my secret. Under no circumstances. The time hasn't come yet.

Time… I wonder how long it has been since I got captured. It could be just a few hours, it could be a day, it could even be a week. In the pervasive darkness that has been surrounding me ever since those soldiers dragged me down here, it's impossible to tell. Especially since I was unconscious for half of the time.

Now I'm wide awake, though. The drugs they gave me a while ago to keep me dizzy have worn off, and I try to take in every detail I come across. It will make finding my way back easier.

Two turns to the right, one to the left, then about fifty feet down a stone staircase. It's the sixty-eighth staircase up until now, as far as I counted right. Which doesn't have to actually be true, since those drugs earlier made me hallucinate some weird stuff. Seriously weird stuff.

Something about my old Cêpan, telling me to never try the Winston hook, whatever that is, but to rather do the Winston double. If I remember correctly – which probably isn't the case– he turned into a blue horse and handed me the most recent copy of the New York times. 'King Kong newly elected Miss America,' the headlines read and I remember being really jealous.

Who knows if I've made up some stairs or not in all this crap.

Not that it would matter, anyway. If I was alone, I'd be hopelessly lost in this confusing maze of tunnels and endless corridors, even if I knew how many staircases there were.

Guess there is a bright side to the guards dragging me all the way. At least they know where we're going.

We turn around a corner into a particularly long corridor. Dimmed light from rusted neon tubes slightly brightens up a group of five big, muscular soldiers standing guard in front of a heavy, circular iron door.

The soldiers stand tall, stiff as a poker, and salute when they see the guards and me coming. Each of them must be tall enough to play in the NBA, and strong enough to rip people my size to pieces with just one hand. They are all armed to the teeth, holding up weapons I've only seen in movies before. Knives, grenades and other deadly toys, some of which I don't even know, stick out of their black leather belts.

When they spot me, their faces grimace to evil, cruel smiles. The one to the left has at least five crooked teeth, the guy next to him has no teeth at all. The soldier in the middle misses one eye, the two to his right both have a similar long scar on their foreheads. All of them are covered in tattoos that show images of guns, death and explosions.

I gulp.

"Listen, guys," I say to the men surrounding me. "I've changed my mind. I want to stay with you instead of those folks here. Don't you have some other dungeon you want to pull me to? Think about the great times we had, you dragging me along, me cursing at you. It was so much fun."

The five soldiers just laugh. The guards that have been accompanying me before seem to be just as intimidated by them as I am.

"Got a new delivery for you guys," one of the guards says and motions the two men who are dragging me to bring me forward. I struggle with my arms and legs, and it almost looks as if I can free myself, but two more come to their aid and I don't stand a chance.

They pull me forward, towards the five hoarse soldiers, and the closer I get, the more I actually realize the seriousness of the situation. I've literally been dragged into a deep hole of shit.

"Number Five," A guard behind me says. "I want you to meet the 'Alpha squad'. They're the cruellest, most brutal, most barbaric men the military has."

He makes a dramatic pause before pointing at the two guys with the scars on their foreheads.

"I don't want to scare you, but the Caine-brothers here, they have been doing front line secret operations in every single war in the last thirty years."

The Caine-brothers grin at me and I immediately look away.

"Those two gentlemen right here, they know more than a hundred ways to kill you with just their small fingers, so I recommend staying away from them," he says nodding at the two soldiers to the left.

"And you might know this young man's face. He's a wanted criminal in more than fifteen different countries. He did things parents tell their kids to scare them. Seriously, you won't sleep without nightmares if I tell you."

As if to confirm this, the soldier in the middle grunts, spits out on the floor and starts heading towards me.

"Charmed," I say, trying to sound tough, but my voice cracks and the last part of the word comes out as a shrill squeek.

These guys really start scaring the hell out of me, and I wonder if I shouldn't use my legacies anyway. At least a little bit of my powers, after all this is an emergency.

But no, I promised, and nothing in the world will make me break it before it's time.

The soldier in the middle – the wanted criminal – reaches me and the other guards reverently take a step back from us. Once they let go off me, I see my opportunity and immediately grab it.

The shackles around me ankles make it hard, but I still manage to close the gap between me and the big soldier in a split-second. He towers at least three heads above me, but by the grit of my teeth I jump to his level and give him a clout that would knock out any other human.

This one, though, doesn't even stumble backwards. He just snatches me out of the air as if nothing happened, and throws me over his shoulder before I even set a foot on the floor.

"Well, Number Five, you're grounded," he says in a deep, intimidating voice and carries me to the heavy circular door. The four other soldiers snicker, or whatever you want to call it, as they sound more like grunting walruses while doing so.

One of the guys who can kill me with their small fingers types a code into a hidden keyboard beside the door and it opens with a loud rumble.

Before I can do anything, the soldiers shove me through the door inside a dark, musty prison cell with so much power, I hit the wall at the other side of the room. Again, the guards laugh.

My heart beats in my throat, as I turn around to watch the door slowly close again. Desperation hits me and I try to get up and get through the remaining crack, but I forgot my legs are tied. I trip and fall headfirst to the ground.

I taste blood in my mouth and feel it running down my chin. Helplessly, with nothing left to do but watch as the small door closes and leaves me in complete darkness. The last thing I see is the crooked smile of the soldiers, laughing at my hopeless struggle.

The mechanism in the door snaps shut and locks me inside the cell with a deafening rattle.

The sound of destiny. And, oh, what an unfortunate destiny.

Broken and defeated I lay on my back, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. The frustration is just too much.

One of the last of my kind, I have to spend the rest of my miserable life in a prison cell on a planet so far away from home.

Surviving for this long, training with my Cêpan, it's all in vain now.

My whole life I've been prepared for this moment, and now that it's here, I don't know what to do. The promise to keep my secret nags at me and for the millionth time I wish I had never made it. If I could just use one of my powers, just for a second, I could bust myself out of here in no time at all. I shake my head about my own stupidity. Why would anyone, especially me, swear such a promise?

But there still is one last thing my captors don't know, one last advantage I have left.

Despite all this, despite all the despair and pressure that threatens to crush me, I can't help but grin.

They still don't know who I really am. They may have been smart enough to take me as prisoner, but they don't have a clue who they really are dealing with. They still believe I'm number Five.

I just hope Marina and the others don't think I'm dead.


	10. Chapter Nine

**CHAPTER NINE**

_NOTE: The number below is the Loric number of the Garde who tells the chapter_

4

After a heavy rain there will be sun shine.

Or at least you'd think so. Right now, all that comes after the heavy rain is even more rain.

Welcome to Canada.

We impatiently wait for the border official to return our fake documents, but he keeps typing things into his computer. From time to time he glances back and forth between Sarah, Six, Nine and me, then at his computer screen, then at our passports.

There obviously is a problem. The official has been holding us up for more than half an hour and the other people in the waiting line behind us are starting to get angry and complain loudly.

I can't blame them. Anyone would be mad after waiting for so long in the pouring rain. We're all soaked to our skin and it just keeps getting worse. I wonder what genius didn't think of building a roof over the passport control. After all, bad weather is part of the agenda in this country.

Just about fifty yards away from where we're standing there's the entrance to a train station. Our train will leave shortly, one that will take us up higher to the north, but we're still stuck here with the official not letting us cross the border. If we want to take the train, we should convince him to let us pass.

I can almost sense the official's nervousness. He's a young man, about twenty-five years old. A short downy beard is growing on his chin and his border police hat tightly rolled over his forehead.

He seems stressed as hell. Small streams of sweat run down his face, even though it's really cold, and his eyes keep twitching from one side to the other. I sigh, trying to calm myself down. One could get an epileptic seizure just from looking at this guy.

I swallow my anger and glance over my shoulder for the millionth time this hour. My gaze wanders from side to side, scanning the area for anything dangerous. I'm ready to grab the others and bolt off at the smallest arouse of suspicion. The Mogs have had more than enough time to get here by now, and I don't want to get caught off guard once more.

But again, all I can see are the angry people in the line behind us and a group of kids on their way to the train station. Nothing has changed since I last checked.

"Dude, please," Eight says to the border official and I turn back around. "We're freezing over here. If there is something wrong with the documents, tell us. If not, just let us pass already."

The young man pretends he hasn't heard him and points at the Loric chests at our feet. Each of us has one of them; Sarah agreed on carrying Nine's, as he left it with us when he ran off to help Six.

"What's inside there?" The man says and I roll my eyes. This must be the tenth time he asks this question today.

"Once and for all," I say. "We told you already, these are the newest findings from a sunken ship near the Gulf of Mexico. The ship is believed to be from pirate times, but it's not sure, so we are taking it to the University of Toronto. Experts will hopefully be able to tell us more about the chests."

"And why would four young people like you be trusted with such an important assignment?" He asks.

"We are students of the famous Professor Oakeneck," Marina answers and I'm sure she just made up the name. The man raises an eyebrow, so I quickly say "Don't tell me you haven't heard of him," and give him an assessing look.

"Umm, of course I've heard of him. And you are what, archaeology students?" he replies after shortly hesitating and I nod.

"So we take these treasure chests directly to Toronto, where they will be examined by professional archaeologists," Marina says. The official nods and looks back at his computer screen. A moment passes, and I almost think he's going to give us the documents back, but then he begins to type into his computer again. I grit my teeth and try to contain myself.

What were we thinking when we had decided to simply cross the border like any other person? Did we actually believe we could just pass by, being the most wanted people in the whole country? It's just a matter of time before the US government and with it the Mogadorians finds out our position, if it hasn't happened already, and then we will be in some serious trouble.

No, we have to get to that train station right now, we've wasted more than enough time.

"Hey, dude, our train leaves in two minutes and if we miss it …" I start saying, but Eight takes a step forward and interrupts me.

"Okay, I've had enough, buddy. Usually, I'm a calm guy, but you've taken it too far. You got the choice: Either you let us pass right now or we contact the Professors at the University of Toronto and tell them we're being groundlessly held up for such a long time at the border. Maybe they'll have a word with your supervisors, who knows. Anyway, I'm sure we all prefer it the easy way, don't we?" Eight says with a disturbing, almost panicking undertone in his voice.

What he's doing is dangerous. Trying to pressure the official might not be the best idea, and the fact that we're bluffing makes it even more risky. But we're running out of time, and we have to act as long as we still can.

And then, out of the corner of my eyes, I see why Eight suddenly is so urging, and my heart makes a jump to my throat.

The Mogs are already here.

About twenty to the left, thirty to the right and who knows how many more behind us. My mind is racing. How can that be? When I looked, just a few seconds ago, not a single Mog was to be seen. And now there's a whole horde of them.

I instinctively grab Sarah's hand and pull her closer. She gives me a surprised glance and I mouth "Mogs." Her eyes widen and she gets alarmingly pale. I instantly regret telling her, as she looks as if she's going to just faint any second, but she has to be ready when things get fast

The Mogs position themselves in a big semicircle around us, blocking every escape route. More come from behind, some even from the waiting line behind us. I don't dare to move. They must have been there for a while now, and I am stunned at how we didn't even notice them all this time.

There's way too many to fight them all. We will be dead before we even get the chance to use our legacies. I close my eyes when I realize our only hope is to run past the border official and into the train station, the only direction that isn't blocked by the Mog soldiers.

And we'd better do it fast.

The people that are waiting in the queue behind us start noticing the Mogs. They probably don't look like aliens to them, rather like strangely dressed, hooded humans, and so the humans don't realize in what a dangerous situation they are. They have no clue what is about to go down any moment.

I bite my lip. Even though the Mogadorians are trying to keep themselves a secret from the public, they'll grab any opportunity to capture or kill us, even if that means they might compromise themselves. They are going to open fire on us, no matter what. They won't care if there are civilians in their way; they'll just shoot them down to get to us.

Which only convinces me more of us having to get out of here, far away from all those innocent people.

The Mogadorians have taken their positions, attaching those cruel-looking guns to their arms. A shocked gasp goes through the crowd and scattered cries ring in the rain, when the people notice the weapons.

My whole body tenses and I don't dare to exhale. The Mogs wait for something to start shooting, maybe for us to make a move, or an order from their commander.

I wonder how I could let it come to this. Why did we wait for the official to give us back our documents? Now I see it was obvious he was just buying time for the troops to come here. We saw the trap and yet we walked right into it.

And while I keep cursing our failure to act, the border official finally decides it's time to let us pass. He gives us a formal smile, apologizes for our inconveniences and hands us back our documents. Oh, how much I want to strangle this guy right now.

I don't know what else to do, so I reach forward to take the passports. As I put them into my bag, Eight silently clears his throat. I catch his eyes and he motions towards the train station. "Run," he mouths. I take a deep breath and nod.

And then we run.

I grab Sarah by the hand and levitate our two chests with my telekinesis. Before the Mogs can react, we're already past the border line and dash towards the entrance of the train station.

Then the Mogadorians open fire and the whole place erupts in chaos.

Surprised, terrified screams and shrill cries come from everywhere. The people run around aimlessly, trying to find cover from the shots or to get to the train station. Some just stand around, stunned and speechless, watching as the Mogs fire volley after volley. Explosions from where the bullets hit the ground light up the whole scene. The sound of the falling rain gets drowned in the deafening noise of the gunfire. And in the middle of all this, the four of us try no to get hit by the bullets.

I try to deflect them, but it's almost impossible to tell what's gunshots and what's just raindrops. We're halfway through our way to the station when it happens.

Just like Ella, Sarah gets shot.

She and I cry out in the same second.

Sarah is yanked away from me and falls to the ground. I stop dead in my tracks, turning around with so much force I am almost ripped from my feet.

Déjà vu, I bitterly think. While I try to spot Sarah in all this chaos, Ella's death replays in my mind. Her, getting shot over and over, the brave but useless attempts to get back up, then her, slumping down and not moving anymore.

The shock and sorrow from Ella's death hasn't left me since, and I can't afford to lose Sarah, too. I would never forgive myself.

Eight and Marina have reached the entrance of the train station and turn back to me. When they realize what happened, and that I'm about to go back for her, Eight shouts at me "Don't, John! That's suicide!"

But I don't care. If Sarah dies, my life would be over either way. How can he ask me to just give up on her? Of course, to them she doesn't matter much, they might even think she's like a millstone around our necks, but to me she's everything.

So I throw all caution to the wind and run back for Sarah. A bullet zips past my arm, another one slightly brushes my thigh. I shove a young woman aside to keep her from being shot. My despair grows the more time passes.

At the same moment I find Sarah - lying on the ground with a big bloody wound in her left calf – I get hit by a bullet. Right between the eyes.

"Oh," I say in surprise and drop to my knees.

The world around me seems to fade away into darkness and suddenly nothing really matters anymore. The only thing I hear is my own heartbeat getting slower and slower, as if saying its final goodbye.

This is it. One less Garde, and with me the hope of retaking Lorien is will be lost. The Mogadorians have won. Ella is dead, who knows what happened to Six and Nine, and now there's only Marina and Eight left. And eventually, they will be captured or killed, too.

And Sarah, Sarah will be taken prisoner again. I can almost see her, rotting in a dark, musty cell until she's old and frail. She'll never see her family again, nor her beloved hometown Paradise. Not even me.

I know I should feel sad, I _want_ to, but somehow, I don't. I can't. Not for Sarah, not for the remaining Garde, not even for failing Henri. All I do feel is an almighty calm overcoming me.

Finally I will rest. There's nothing I can do to change it anymore, in fact I can't do anything anymore, and this insight comes so naturally I can't help but accept it.

It's ridiculous, but I have never been as peaceful and relaxed as I am right now. I am ready to just lie down and wait for the inevitable.

Only the inevitable doesn't come.

A sudden heat coming from the red bracelet around my wrist makes me snap open my eyes. The bracelet starts expanding with a silent clatter, and from one moment to the other I have a six foot shield protecting me from incoming bullets.

Not that it would matter, anyway, as I am already deadly wounded. Why didn't the shield form when it was actually needed? It would have easily saved my life.

Which reminds me, shouldn't I be dead by now? Taking a gunshot in the head, especially one from a Mog weapon, definitely would kill you right away. So why am I still alive?

I take a deep breath. Slowly, a suspicion creeps in.

I raise my hand to where I got hit in the head. There's nothing there, no wound, not even a scratch.

And I feel like the most stupid idiot on earth.

It wasn't a bullet that hit me; it was just a big raindrop. Rain falls down on me and I think I'm going to die. I would shake my head about my own stupidity, but all the suspense and the tension from before come back to me at once. My heart shrivels when I think about how easily I abandoned all my friends.

I bite my tongue. Self-pity won't help now.

Desperately hoping it's not too late, I push myself to my feet and run towards Sarah, using the red shield to block any incoming gunshots. Hundreds of bullets crash against it, creating an uproarious noise.

Miraculously, Sarah didn't get hit by any more gunshots after the first one. The hole in her calf looks seriously bad, the bullet must have broken her shin bone, but it's nothing Marina won't be able to heal.

"Don't worry, Sarah, it'll be alright. Everything is going to be alright," I say in a calming voice, but I'm not sure she even heard me over the chaos around us.

I carefully pick her up, which is harder than it sounds, considering I have a six foot shield around me arm. Without wasting any more time, I turn on my heels and run back to the entrance of the train station, holding the shield behind me to protect us from the Mogs.

Marina and Eight are waiting for us at the entrance. The whole station is crowded with people who try to get away from here as fast as possible. A mass panic threatens to crush the people at the exits.

Once I am inside the station I remember our chests. I must have dropped them when Sarah was shot.

As if knowing what I'm thinking, Marina points at her feet, where all four Loric chests are piled up.

"We got them, when you ran back for Sarah," she says.

"Great," I answer, a bit out of breath. "Marina, do you think you can heal Sarah?"

She nods, but Eight holds her back.

"There's no time for that right now. We have to get to safety first," he says, and as much as I want Sarah's pain to stop, I know he's right. The Mog soldiers will be inside the train station any second now.

"Where do we go? We can't take the exit, it's way too crowded," I say.

Eight points to the only train in the station. "Its destination isn't shown on any of the schedules, but at the moment I don't really care. We just have to get out of here," he shouts.

I nod and we run over to it, Marina and Eight carrying the chests, me carrying Sarah. We jump through the doors, just as they close and the train begins to roll out the back of the station.

For a moment, we stand still, catching our breaths, still not believing we all made it out alive. The train picks up speed and soon we leave the station behind.

I sigh and look around. Surprisingly enough, there are only two more people in our car. I would have expected the train to be stuffed to the gills with refugees from the gunfight, but apparently, almost all of them rather ran for the exit than for the train.

We pick a seat row at the back of the car, and I carefully lay Sarah across it. She groans in pain when Marina puts her hands on her calf. In a matter of seconds, the wound in her leg is healed.

Sarah looks at Marina with a relieved smile. "Thanks," she says, then turns to me. "And thank you, too, my saviour." She gives me a long kiss on the cheek and I close my eyes. I take in the smell of her beautiful hair, and imagine what it would be like if I hadn't been able to save her. What it would be like to never look into her bright, blue eyes, to never hear her voice again.

I shake my head and sit down next to her. It's impossible to think of a life without her.

For a while I stare out the window, holding Sarah's hands in mine.

It still is hard to believe how we all got out of this unharmed. Maybe there is hope for the Loric, after all. We will find out where Six and Nine are, and we'll rescue them, come what may.

I can't help but smile to myself when I remember what Six had said when the Mogadorians attacked us in the school back in Paradise. There is no getting away from the Mogadorians once they find you. You can fight them, you can try running, but you will never escape. Well, here we are, sitting on the train to our safety, every mile getting us farther away from the Mogs.

Sarah leans her head against my shoulder and I wrap my arms around her. With a sigh I lean back in my seat and listen to her steady breath. The calmness from earlier, when I thought I was going to die, starts to return to me.

And then a loudspeaker announcement rings through the train, and changes everything. My brain feels as if it's frozen from all the chills running through my body. All the relief and peacefulness are suddenly blown away, and the thrill of the fight kicks back in, when a deep Mogadorian voice sounds through the loudspeakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, dear extraterrestrials, we apologize for your inconveniences - hopefully you can forgive us for trying to shoot you - and we wish you a comfortable ride. Next Stop is hell."


	11. Chapter Ten

 

**CHAPTER TEN**

10

I shouldn't be alive.

No one ever admits that, but deep inside I know that's the truth. I shouldn't be here. Not me.

You might think me being still alive is a miracle. And what else could it be? After all, I seem to survive every single catastrophe I get in. Every god damn disaster that happens, I'm always the one to get out of it with my life.

But at what cost? What is the price of one life for all those who died to save me?

Yeah, I bitterly think. It must be a miracle. A miracle that keeps me safe, but harms everyone around me. Must have been a miracle that killed my parents, uncle Pit, the other Elders, Six, Nine, Crayton, and so many more.

Must be a miracle, that fate always seems to spare my life. It's so damn wonderful to always be the only survivor. To always be everybody's last hope. To have everyone else die, just so you have a chance to live on, isn't that the greatest thing one could ask for in the whole universe?

The cruelty of having to watch all your loved ones die makes it hard to appreciate this kind of gift. It's hard to not be heartless and cold when more and more people you care for die, with you being unable to help them. Or actually, what makes it even worse, being able to help them, but not having the permission to. Having sworn an oath that tells me to just abandon them to their fate.

Because that's the worst feeling in the world, being helplessly bound to a magical promise you made back when you were a little kid. It rips you apart and shreds you into little pieces until all you want to do is crawl into a little hole and cry all day.

And here I sit, in my dirty, dark prison cell, more than a mile under the surface, and cry.

So many people died for me. Good people. Better than I will ever be. So many lives sacrificed, just to save mine. What can I ever do to make it up to them?

No, this is not a miracle. This is a god damn curse. The greatest thing in the whole universe? Don't make me laugh.

The greatest thing in the universe would be to turn back time, but even for me, that's impossible. Still, if I had a wish, just one wish, I would go back to the day I was born, the day the Mogs first came.

Uncle Pit used to tell me this story often when I was a kid. The story about the invasion of my home planet.

That disastrous day, when the Mogs had wiped out and entire civilization, had been a holy day, a day of joy and celebration. No one had expected them to attack, and when their ships had suddenly appeared in the sky, we were completely taken by surprise.

After my people realized what was going on, they fought back heroically, but we didn't stand a chance. We were too unprepared. In the end, when it was clear that everything was lost, they tried to save ten of us.

Us… Oh, how I miss the others. Ten in the beginning, and now how many of us are left? What happened to the former strength and pride of my people?

I sob and hold my head. Sometimes, it's all just too much. I take a deep breath to stop the weeping, and get lost in my thoughts again.

I was a special child when I was small, otherwise I wouldn't be alive now. The moment I was born, they knew I was different. And when our defences were shoved away on that unfortunate day and my people was about to give up all hope, uncle Pit came out of nowhere and offered the ten of us a ticket to freedom, a chance to survive. He offered us to be taken to the closest habitable planet in a spaceship.

The next part always triggers slumbering emotions deep inside my soul. Homesickness, long forgotten sorrows, but most of all the giant hole growing up without parents left in my heart.

At first, my parents didn't want to give me away. I had only been born, and now I would be ripped away from them again? The cruelty of the situation still overwhelms me years later.

But when time got short and the Mogs were only a few miles away, my parents understood that the only way for me to survive was to come with uncle Pit. After a long hesitation, they gave in and let me go.

It's weird, but even though I was only a couple of hours old, I think I actually do remember bits this last scene with my parents. Them, saying good bye, kissing my forehead and holding me in their arms. My mother's long, brown hair, stroking my cheeks. My father's deep, pleasant voice, talking to the ship's pilot.

Then, so uncle Pit had told me, the ship took off, just in time to see the Mogs march through our last defence lines. I don't know how our little spaceship actually made it through the Mog's blockade without being blown to pieces by their fleet, but somehow we escaped.

Ten of us, plus the pilot and uncle Pit. Not much more than a spark of hope in an ocean of despair.

But even the smallest spark can start a fire.

Or at least, that's what uncle Pit would always tell me.

I think, of all the people I've lost, I miss him the most, beside number Five, of course.

Pit's calm nature, his humorous way of talking, and the intelligent, deep look in his eyes. And now, I don't even know where he is, or if he's even still alive.

The last time I saw him comes to my mind.

'There will come a time, when it all depends on you, my child,' uncle Pit had said, just before leaving me for ever. 'You, my child, will be the one to make the choice. Your decision will determine this war, one way or another.'

I had asked him what that meant, but he had remained mysteriously silent about it. And since this was our final goodbye, I didn't want to upset him by digging deeper.

'But be careful, my child,' he had continued after a while. 'Don't let it go to you head. Be brave, be strong, but don't get too self-confident and arrogant. Don't mourn over the past and keep your head up. Use your gifts only when the time is right and the signs have appeared. Your future won't be easy, oh no, anything but that. Your path has many windings, and even I can't tell for sure where you will end up. But I know you, I believe in you, and I know you can make it. I wouldn't want anyone else in the whole world to do the job rather than you, child.'

I had been only six years old back then, just tall enough to tug at his sleeves.

'But uncle Pit, I don't know if I can do this, all alone. Can't I at least tell Crayton?' I had asked, and he had squatted and looked me right in the eye for a long time, his face as serious as never before.

'Listen, you are the last one to hold this secret. If you can't succeed, no one can. My child, you mustn't tell anyone, you hear me? No one must know before the time has come,' he had said in such an urging voice I had to give in. I could tell it was really important to him, even though I didn't really understand why.

'You have to promise, okay? Say it, say that you will keep it a secret until the time is right!' He had demanded, and, because this was the last time I would ever see him, I had nodded and repeated 'I swear it, I will keep it a secret until the time is right.'

A look of relief had crossed his serious face, and he had pulled me in for one last hug.

Then, with no further words, he had turned around, and without looking back, he had walked away into the distance until I couldn't see him anymore.

And since then, the burden is mine and mine alone to carry.

.

.

I'm waking up to ash and dust and loud, alarmed shouts. It's the first thing I hear in days.

I raise my head, waiting for any more noise. What could have caused those shouts? News about the others, maybe?

A few seconds pass without anything else ringing through to my cell, so I lie down again. Guess I only imagined it.

I sigh and close my eyes. Not that it would matter if they're open or not, anyway. The darkness of the prison cell is so complete and flawless, I can't see a thing. A whole army of Mogs could be inside this room right now and I wouldn't even notice.

I turn from lying on my back to my belly. How long have I been down here? Must have been at least a two days, probably more, even though I can't tell for sure.

One question has been keeping me busy all this time: What happened to the others after I was captured? Did they manage to escape, or did they get caught, too? Are they maybe even in the same prison, maybe even in one of the cells next door?

For all I can tell, they could even be in this very cell, and I wouldn't know. This darkness really starts creeping me out.

I wonder if you can forget what light looks like, if you don't see any for a very long time.

And then I hear another shout, much closer this time. I jump to my feet with a jolt and listen for any more screams, but again, there's nothing. I sniff and scratch the back of my head.

Could it be that I'm so desperate for something to happen that I 'm hearing voices? Am I going crazy? Have I been down here for so long that I am losing my marbles?

I wrap my arms around my chest and try to convince myself I'm not, when a sudden loud rumble makes me flinch.

This time I'm sure I didn't imagine it. It was real. I press my lips together, holding my breath to hear .

There are more shouts, more of that rumbling noise, a man cries out a few times, then silence again.

My heart races and my arms are shaking from excitement. Finally something is happening! I have to know what's going on out there.

I walk into the darkness, in the direction where I hope the door is. Maybe the sounds will be clearer from there. I keep my hands stretched out in front of me, so that I don't…

Wall!

I ram directly against it and tumble a few feet backwards. Dazedly I rub my head, then I reach out for the wall again and feel my way along it until I reach a corner. No door yet.

I slowly continue walking along the wall for a while. The cell is much bigger than I thought.

Another rumbling noise, even closer than before, makes me prick up my ears.

I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd say it almost sounds like the echoes of people being thrown against walls. I frown in confusion. What the hell could be possibly going on out there?

Then, in the silence that follows once again, I can make out a single persons footsteps echoing through the corridor in front of my cell, and my heart makes a jump. Someone is coming this way!

"What the hell…" I hear one of the 'alpha squad' soldiers, who are apparently still guarding my cell, say. Chairs are being pushed back and I hear all five of them stand up. The clicking of machineguns being brought to positions silently rings through the door.

"Listen, kiddo, I have no idea how you got down here or what you want, but I suggest you go back to where you came from, if you don't want a bullet up your ass," their leader, the top-wanted criminal, says with a malicious undertone.

Kiddo? I gasp. What is a kid doing in a top-secret US military base? And if the soldiers don't know him, then who on earth is he?

"Listen, tough guy," a young male voice answers from across the corridor. "I suggest you open that door right now, if you don't want your head rammed into that wall."

I stop moving in bafflement. The guards laugh, but I hardly notice.

The temperature feels like it has gone up by fifty degrees, and hot butterflies bustle in my stomach. I… I think…I know that voice. My mind rakes its time to process this new change of fate, but a small hope forms in my heart.

Can it be? Is it possible that he survived?

The leader of the 'alpha squad' rips me out of my thoughts.

"I'm warning ya," he says to the new guy, way more aggressively now. "One more step and I shoot."

There's a short pause, in which the person he's talking to seems to consider that threat, then I hear another footstep from across the corridor.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," the criminal guy sighs and then fires a gunshot.

I hold my breath, waiting for the sound of the bullet's impact, or any sign that other person got hit, but all I hear is my own heart, beating faster than a drum.

"What on earth…" Another one of the guards begins, but he doesn't finish the sentence. The rest it is drowned in a scream.

Something – or rather someone, by the sound of it –crashes into the door and I jump backwards in surprise. From the other side of the door, one of the guards groans, then I can hear my other four captors break out in shocked murmurs.

"Boy, I don't know how you did that, but you're going to pay for it," the 'alpha squad' leader says, and I can tell he's not so sure of himself anymore.

"Shoot that greenhorn!" He shouts nonetheless and then they all start firing at that one person.

I press my hands on my ears, trying to shut off the noise of the gunfire. After all this time in complete silence, the loud gunshots feel like knives stabbing into my skull.

I take a few steps forward and finally find the circular door. Because I don't know what else to do, I start hammering against it with my fists, but it is drowned in the noise of the gunshots. I've never felt so useless in my whole life. Out there someone is fighting for me, once again risking his life for mine. Or at least that's what I think.

'Open the door,' the person had said, which technically puts him on my side. Anyone who gets me out of this dirt hole is my friend.

Or does he just want the door open to kill me?

I shake my head. I'm getting too paranoid. No one would go this far down into a secret, hidden military base just to kill me. If they had wanted to, they could have just slit my throat when I was asleep or something. They wouldn't need somebody to rambo his way through that maze, just to get me out of the picture.

No, whoever the 'alpha squad' is shooting at right now must be here to bust me out.

I jump back in shock when another one of the guards gets slammed against the door.

My mind is racing in euphoria. Someone must have fought his way through the whole base, just to get me to me. And that someone is slamming my last captors against the cell's door, then he's going to get me out of here.

And that someone doesn't seem to give a damn about the remaining three guards firing everything they've got at him. I almost can't contain my excitement.

Two more bodies fly against the door, each leaving behind a big dent. Four down, one to go, I cheer in my head.

And that one guy seems to be out of ammo. I can hear the silent clicking sound that signalizes he has fired everything he had. A few seconds of silence pass.

"So, the choice is still yours," the guy from across the corridor yells with a booming voice. "Open that god damn door, or your head really will end up in that wall over there."

The last guard, I guess it's the leader, seems to be really intimidated, as he immediately stands up, and I can hear him type something into the keyboard. It takes him several tries, probably because he's trembling so badly.

But then, finally, the iron door's heavy mechanisms rumble, and inch for inch it slowly opens up.

I can not believe this is actually happening. I am really getting out of here. I pinch myself in the arm to make sure I'm not just dreaming all of it.

The glaring neon light stings into my eyes when I look outside the cell.

I blink fiercely. After all this time in the dark, I need a few seconds to get used to the sudden brightness. And when I do, it's just in time to see the leader of the 'alpha squad' sail through the air in a high arc and hit the opposite wall headfirst.

"He provoked me," the guy that saved me says to my left and shrugs.

I take a deep breath, and with a big grin I turn around to the boy I thought I would never see again.

He trots towards me, calm and cool as always. Whistling a silent tune, he takes his time coming over, but he never takes his eyes off me.

Words can't express how much I've missed him in the past months. There's not a place I don't think about him, not a time my mind isn't occupied by his heroic sacrifices. There's not a day that passes without me suffering from my infinite guilt towards him.

The endless happiness that flows through me now that I know he's alive and well, is so overwhelming I fear I'm going to faint.

And then he finally reaches me and I almost explode from excitement and emotions when he stops, just a few feet in front of me.

"Hi, Ten," Number Five says and I throw my arms around him.


	12. Chapter Eleven

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

8

 

Let me give you an advice.

Next time before you board a train, make sure it’s the right one.

Well, assume you are in a very big hurry, let’s say because you’re late for an important meeting, or you need to get home for your favourite TV show really fast.

Or maybe there’s just a horde of bloodthirsty aliens chasing you, trying to shoot your damn head off.

Whatever of these situations is the case, let’s just say you will be really stressed.

Now, you’re at a train station and one of the trains is just about to leave. You’re not sure it’s the right one, the one you need, but the doors will close any second and you know you can’t wait for the next one. So, what do you do?

You may think it doesn’t matter what train you take, you might think you can just get off at the next stop, if it’s the wrong one, or you may just not think at all. But whatever you do, take a moment to consider what the risks are _before_ you board the train. You might find yourself in an even worse position than before.

Take Marina, John, Sarah and me, for example.

A few moments ago, when we were attacked by a bunch of aliens and managed to flee into that train station at the Canadian border by the skin of our teeth, we didn’t stop. We didn’t hesitate and we didn’t take a moment to consider the obviously enormous risks we took by entering the only train in there. Well, to be honest, there wasn’t much time for it. Two of us had almost died, the aliens were still shooting at us, the whole place shook from explosions and smoke and rain made it impossible to see how long it would take our enemies to follow us. But now I wish we hadn’t made that mistake.

Making mistakes is human, I know.

Bad thing we’re not human at all, or at least the majority of us isn’t. Marina, John and I are supposed to be smarter, quicker and overall just way more cautious. It’s exactly these mistakes that should differ us from the earthlings. We shouldn’t be senselessly running around from one disaster to the next, as we have been for the past week.

We should know better than that.

The Mogadorian loudspeaker announcement has convinced me of the opposite, though. We obviously don’t know better than anything.

By no means did we escape the Mogs, we just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Trying to get out of this mess, all we managed to do was to bury ourselves deeper in it. The situation just keeps getting worse and worse.

Because up until now, the biggest group of Mogs that has ever been thrown at us was never more than sixty or seventy. This time, though, it’s not just a few Mogadorian soldiers attacking.

It must be an entire army.

I stand up from my seat and gulp. Hundreds of heavy footsteps echo from the walls, literally making the whole train shake. Telling by the sound of it, they can’t be more than four wagons away, probably less. The noise of their metal boots stomping on the floor as they march in step is as precise as a metronome, getting louder the closer they come.

Like a slow, steady clock, counting down to our final fate.

Beside me, Marina lets out a sudden, loud whimper and immediately presses her hands on her mouth, as if to prevent any more sounds to escape it. Compared to the rest of us, she had a rather sheltered life until the point we met up. She’s not used to situations like these. To be honest, she looks like she’s about to faint any second, and the more she tries to hide the fact that she’s scared as hell, the more obvious it becomes.

I think about turning around to her, looking her deep in the eyes, maybe hugging her. I want to comfort her, to tell her everything’s alright even though nothing is alright. I want to let her know she’s not alone. That we will always be there for her.

That _I_ will always be there for her. That I do remember that moment in the US military base a couple of days ago, every single part of it. And that most of all, I remember the kiss.

I’m not sure why I don’t, though. I’m not sure why I just keep looking straight forward, pretending I don’t see the pleading looks she gives me, that I don’t notice that special tone in her voice every time she talks to me, that excited smile when I’m around. I’m not sure why I’m acting like a stupid idiot all this time.

Because, like the stupid idiot I am, instead of sharing my thoughts with her, I just step forward, away from her, and ignore the frustrated sinking of her shoulders.

Disappointment. Mistakes. Shame. What’s next?

I bite my lip and look out the window. The storm clouds have darkened the sky outside, and all that is visible from the landscape are dark meadows, blurred by our enormous speed.

It’s far too late to get off the train now; we’re already going more than 180 miles per hour. Neither can I teleport us out, it would definitely kill us at this speed. As a matter of fact, we have no other choice but to finally stand our ground fight.

Despite all my hate and contempt, I’ve got to hand it to the Mogs, their strategists are nothing but brilliant. They understood that we only have a chance, when all the remaining Garde fight together. Each of us is irreplaceable. Each of us has to play his or her own part to defeat the enemy, there’s no other way. Without the others we may still be a threat, but that’s nothing compared to our combined power.

So, instead of directly facing us all together, they split us apart first. They tracked us down and cut our group into pieces, just when we were so close to reuniting every living Garde.

I exhale fiercely and vigorously walk down to the middle of our train wagon to get a better overview. Maybe I can find something that will help us fight the Mogs.

The walls are probably matt white usually, but now they seem rather grey, with the rain and the clouds blocking most of the sunlight, making the late afternoon appear like the middle of the night.

We’re in the last car of the train, with nowhere to fall back to. At the one end of the car, John and Sarah are standing side by side. They have their backs turned to me, watching the door to the next wagon, from where the noises of the approaching Mog horde are getting louder and louder.

“We could try blocking the door somehow,” I shout over the sound of the Mog army. John thinks about it for a moment, then nods.

“I’m on it,” he shouts back.

The door itself looks heavy and solid enough to withstand the Mogs for a while, as long as they don’t decide to just blast it away. The only problem is there is nothing around we could use to block it with.

“Maybe you can use the seats,” Sarah suggests. John shrugs and with a loud crack he rips out an entire seat row from the ground with his telekinesis. He levitates it over to the door and places it so that the door can’t be opened.

“That should work,” he says, and while he proceeds to rip out more seats, I turn back around to look for more things that could be useful.

What draws my attention is what’s at the other end of the car. I haven’t noticed ventilation shaft before, just a few feet away from it there are the two other passengers sitting next to each other. Well, it’s not exactly an emergency exit, but at least it leads out of the train.

I smirk, even though I don’t feel like smirking at all. It’s a crazy thought, but maybe all hope is not lost yet. The smirk is far too small to crawl through, not even big enough to stick my head, but if we could somehow enlarge it…

Marina has followed me to the middle of the wagon and stands next to me.

“Got something?” she asks and I shrug.

“Maybe,” I say without looking at her. I’m still thinking about how to make the ventilation hole bigger. There might be something useful in one of our Loric chests.

“I don’t know, maybe we could try the emergency break,” Marina suggests and hesitatingly points at a small red device at the wall. Dumbfounded, I stare at it for a second, wondering how the hell I didn’t think of that before.

“Well, it’s worth the try,” I say after a while and reach out for the small lever.

“Hold on to something!” I yell over my shoulder, then press it

I duck my head and close my eyes, expecting the train to stop with a jerk.

The seconds pass and nothing happens. I slowly open one eye, then the other. I let go of the lever and turn back around to Marina.

“Nothing,” I say and sigh. Maybe the hope that the emergency stop would actually work had really been there for a few seconds, but, as really often lately, we’re not that fortunate. The train keeps driving at the same speed as before.

The only thing that I caused by pressing that lever is a malicious laughter, coming out of the loudspeakers.

“Exactly how dumb do you think we are?” the deep Mog voice roars through the train. “You puny little creatures are so damn ridiculous. If our big leader could see you pathetic scum right now, there would be no stopping him from crushing you into pieces.”

Hundreds of scornful voices from the Mog army join the announcer in laughing at us, making me flinch. I blush and fiercely walk back to John and Sarah keeping my head low. Marina follows right behind me, even more ashamed than me.

The worst thing is the Mog announcer is right. We did play this whole thing terribly bad.

Once we got separated by the Mogs, it was way too easy for them to trap us. We made so many mistakes at so many occasions, all they had to do was jump at the opportunities and strike.

And now, they finally have us cornered up in this damn train, and we’re out of options. All I can do is curse our recklessness. It makes me sick how careless we’ve acted, considering what’s at stake. If our Cêpans were still alive, they’d smack us in the face.

I clench my fists so hard I can feel my fingernails cut into my skin. What were we thinking? The people of Lorien put all their trust into us, and all we do is screw everything up. We got a second chance, and what did we make out of it?

We’re just not up to our enemies, even though we should be. Who else if not us?

But the Mogs literally anticipated each and every one of our moves, as if our plans were as transparent as glass. It began in that park, after we hadn’t heard of them in a while. They had known exactly where and when to ambush us, as if they had kept track of us all this time. I don’t know why they let the rest of us go back then, I’m sure they could have just come with another ingenious plan to get us all at once, but apparently they settled with just capturing Six and Nine.

And… And killing Ella.

The anger about her death rises inside me again. For Marina’s sake, I have tried to hold it back until now. She still believes Ella might be alive, somewhere out there, and I didn’t want to destroy her hopes. But keeping all my emotions locked away inside is heavily wearing me down. It’s just too much to hide it all.

Whatever we do, the Mogs are always a step ahead. It’s like they know exactly what we are going to do before we even know it ourselves. And now there’s no way out, it’s either fight or get killed.

I grit my teeth and think about what life was like less than a week ago. Back when I was Vishnu, and the only people I ever saw were at the occasional visits by General Grahish Sharma and his soldiers. It was a peaceful way of life, with hardly any worries or duties. In all the time I was all alone I almost forgot what I’m actually here for - here, on earth.

I am here to prepare, to survive, to defend myself and the other Garde for as long as it takes. I… _We_ are here to get ready to show the Mogadorians the Loric won’t be defeated so easily.

And it’s about time we start striking back.

The sudden determination I have at these thoughts pumps new power through my body. I stand next to John, getting into a fighting position. All muscles tensed, we wait for the Mog army to enter through the door. It’s hard to keep my knees from shaking, as the Mogadorians come closer and closer. I can already hear the clicking of hundreds of guns, as they prepare to blast anything in this wagon to pieces.

They can’t be far away now.

But the four of us against a whole army? I’ve never even seen this many of them at one place. Marina told me how Six battled against an entire horde of Mogs at the lake near Santa Teresa, and that she defeated them all by herself. Well, Six isn’t here right now, and no one of us has much experience in fighting Mogs.

And Four of us, that’s counting in Sarah, who basically won’t be of any help at all. The best thing she can do is not stand in our way. I wouldn’t want any civilians to be hit, I bitterly think.

As if on cue, Marina silently asks “What should we do about those two?”

With a jittery finger she points at the two other passengers in the car. The hoarse undertone in her shaky voice doesn’t surprise me; I’m not feel any better myself. Marina has never been good at hiding her feelings, and right now, it’s like she’s about to explode from fear. Even though I’m terrified to the bones, too, I lay my hand on her shoulder as confidently as I can. She tenses at first, but I can tell it calms her down in a way. And having her so close kind of calms me down a bit, too.

It’s not enough to stop my hands from uncontrollably trembling with fear, though.

I clear my throat and force myself to focus. There are things that are more important right now.

I glance at where Marina is pointing - the two other passengers in the back of the car - and raise an eyebrow.

It’s a girl and a boy, both about two or three years older than me. Even though I don’t recognize them, I get the feeling that I’ve seen them somewhere before.

When I look at them, the guy shyly turns away, but the girl holds my gaze. She has shoulder-length, black hair and a round, almost circular face. The most remarkable thing about her, though, are her big, round eyes. They seem a bit too large for her face, but they make her appear younger than she actually is.

As we stare at each other for a few moments, a strange feeling inside me stirs. Looking into those deep, red-bluish eyes, I feel some sort of odd pull, like an invisible force urging me towards her. Suddenly, it’s like all my strength is drained out of me and my whole body goes numb.

My hand powerlessly slips away from Marina’s shoulder, and icy shills run down my spine.

I try to look away, but I somehow can’t get myself to.

What the hell is going on?

I take a deep breath, but the overcoming need to come closer to the mysterious girl doesn’t go away, it just grows bigger and heavier. As if pulled by an invisible rope, my body begins to lean forward towards her, and I don’t know how long I can hold myself back. I don’t even know if I want to hold myself back.

I force myself to concentrate, but the more I try, the more I feel myself overwhelmed by the girl’s sparkling eyes.

I open my mouth, but no sound comes out of my dry throat. My vision is blurring, making everything but the girl’s shimmering eyes seem far away and unimportant.

Now that I think about it, why should I actually try resisting the overcoming urge to come forward? I mean, the situation can’t get much worse right now.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Marina uncomfortably shift her weight and frown at me. She says something in a worried tone, but I can’t understand exactly what. It doesn’t matter anyway.

One after the other, I can feel my thoughts turn silent and fade away, until there’s just one left: the one that’s telling me to get closer to the two strangers.

I take an uncertain step forward without even noticing. I’ve never seen eyes like that, so pure and clear, I could spend hours just looking into them. Their colour is fascinating; not exactly blue, I’d say, no, they’re rather some sort of purple…

I suddenly lose my balance when the train makes a sharp bend to the right. Dazed and distracted as I am, still lost in the girl’s eyes, I don’t realize what’s going on. I don’t manage to catch myself and bump my head against the wall, which makes me lose eye contact with the girl and rips me out of this trancelike state.

I blink a few times in confusion about what just happened. I can still feel the girl’s eyes on me, the grip around my mind. It feels like I just woke up from a strange dream, and now I’m trying to figure out what it was about. I lean against the wall, my head feeling like it’s stuffed with cotton.

“They’re Mogs,” Sarah suddenly whispers and brings me back to reality. I stare at her for a second, my mind trying to make sense of what she just said.

“Sure, Sarah? They don’t look much like Mogs,” John whispers back, as I regain my balance. Marina gives me a concerned glance, but I just shrug and smile, trying not to show how messed up I’m feeling right now. She scowls, then turns back to the two strangers. The girl is still watching at me, but I don’t make the mistake of looking her in the eyes again.

Mogs, that must be it. Sarah is right.

The first thing my Cêpan Reynolds taught me about our enemies was to never look them straight in the eyes. Guess now I know why.

The thing is Reynolds always told me it would be a horrible experience, that I’d have visions of my biggest nightmares if I’d ever make that mistake.

Well, I’m still not sure about what just happened, but it definitely wasn’t a nightmarish vision; that’s clear. In fact, it actually was quite calming and pleasant, and that’s exactly what scares me the most.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Sarah says to John. “I spent enough time in that stinky Mog prison know what they look like. And those two definitely are Mogadorians.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. But these two are different than any Mog I’ve seen before,” I agree.

“Okay, if those are Mogs, why didn’t they attack us yet? They could have just took us when we entered the train, or any time after us, but they’re just sitting there without really doing anything,” John points out, still not convinced.

“It could be another part of their strategy,” I say. “Maybe they’re just here to distract us from the real threat.”

“In that case, we shouldn’t let them distract us,” Sarah urges. “The Mog army will be here any moment. Get your things together, guys, there will be hundreds of Mogs here in a couple of seconds, two more won’t really matter.”

I have to admit she’s right, even though I can’t shake the feeling that those two here are not who we assume they are. Or at least not the girl.

I glance at her for one last time, but she isn’t looking at us anymore. Her head is tilted towards the window as she watches the dark landscape pass by, not paying us any attention.

The boy sitting next to her takes out a tiny white cell phone from his pocket and starts typing on its little keyboard. Unlike the girl beside him, he actually has some resemblances with the Mogs I know. His face has the same sharkish features, the same, pale skintone. The cell phone’s display enlightens his head for a second, some of the tattoos that cover every Mog soldier’s skull are visible through his short, black hair.

A sudden sound, coming from the door to the next wagon behind us, startles me. Something crashes against the door, and I realize the Mogs are here.

“It’s blocked,” a Mog yells, and the rest of the army responds in a chaos of uproar, screams and shouts. The noise of the Mog army, their footsteps, the clicking of their guns and their rattling respiration, it all arrives at its maximum in an ultimate crescendo.

My heartbeat ticks along to this final clock, so loud and fast, it feels like my chest will be ripped apart any second.

And just as the whole thing reaches its highlight, all the noise suddenly stops, as if it was sealed off, when the last announcement comes out of the loudspeakers. All of a sudden the train is so silent that I can even hear the rain drumming against the windows.

“Well, well, well, would you look at that. The pathetic, little creatures have started to show some initiative, isn’t that cute. Got bad news for you kids, it’s way too late for that. Nothing can stop us, so stop wasting our time and just give up already. Because you’re nothing more than that: a waste of time. Only a shadow of the strength and pride Lorien once had.

So, for the sake of your ancestors, I hope you put up a good fight. Well, on second thought, that would be too much to ask. For the sake of your ancestors, try to die without peeing yourselves,” the announcer says and snickers.

The entire train is still completely silent, no one makes a sound. I don’t dare to exhale. Maybe I can hold up time just like I’m holding up my breath. Not very likely, but if you have a better idea, feel free to tell me.

Through the big iron door and the seats that are supposed to block it, I can hear a commander bark orders in the cruel Mogadorian language.

Then everything turns back silent again. The only sound I hear is my heart pumping faster and louder than ever.

The Mogs are waiting in the next wagon, ready to shred us to into mincemeat. And all that separates us from them is this mingy iron door.

I’m about to turn around to be ready when our enemies break through it, just as the stranger girl suddenly stands up from her seat.

“It’s now or never,” she says to the guy, who nods and types something into his phone. The girl quickly glances at us, then nods at her companion and takes a few steps backwards, ducking behind a seat row ten yards away from the back wall of the wagon.

I raise an eyebrow, trying to figure out what she’s hiding from, when I suddenly remember our theory about them being here just to distract us. Well, if that’s their plan, it’s definitely working.

But what if that’s not quite it. I mean, what if their real purpose is not to just keep us busy? More than just sitting around and observing us? What if their true role is to actually initiate the assault like some sort of vanguard, to weaken us before the big army takes us down?

Whatever case, it’s best to take them out right now, instead of waiting for them to make a move first.

Just as I come to this conclusion, the guy reaches into his coat pocket and takes out a small, round object. A tiny, red lamp is blinking at its side. That suspiciously looks like…

“A bomb,” Sarah speaks out my thoughts and I awaken from my rigidity.

At this point, I don’t even want to mention the fact that we had the chance to deal with those two all this time but failed to take it. It was so ridiculously predictable that we would got caught in the horns of a dilemma again, I don’t know if I should laugh hysterically or just cry.

Both, probably, but there’s no time for that right now. In a couple of moments, we will be toast if we don’t do something soon.

Hundreds of bloodthirsty Mogs, waiting to shoot us to pieces from the one side. Ever since the invasion of Lorien, they’ve been wanting nothing more than to kill us, and now that they’re almost at their goal, they sure as hell won’t let a couple of train seats hold them up. I can almost picture them, one Mog soldier next to the other, their ugly faces screwed up into grotesque grimaces when they realize they are so close to finally hunting down their long awaited prey. They must be fighting over who will get to enter our car first, who will get to shoot the first bullet, who will get to _kill_ first. The thought of having us trapped here must make their mouth water.

And from the other side, there’s a Mog with a bomb, about to blow himself and the whole wagon – which unfortunately includes us, too - into bits. He squeezes the small, round bomb in his hand, which immediately begins to glow. The surface becoming transparent, showing some sort of countdown in the centre of the small device. 10, 9, 8, 7…

Marina takes my hand and squeezes it, and I hardly even notice. I’m too shocked and stunned by the hopelessness of the situation to react to anything, and I can feel the others are going through the same.

And what would it matter, anyway. Whatever we do, it wouldn’t change a thing about the god damn situation we got ourselves into. It wouldn’t change a thing about the fact that there is a gigantic horde of Mogs right outside that door. And it wouldn’t change a thing about the bomb in this very wagon.

All our gifts from the Loric, all the abilities and skills we obtained over the years, it’s all for nothing. They can’t change the fact that in the end, no matter how hard and brave we fight, we will be desperately outnumbered and get overrun.

Because, eventually, one day, even hope has to die. And we, the last free Garde, will be buried and forgotten with it.

The last three seconds of the bomb’s countdown run out and I hold my breath, preparing to get blasted away in the explosion.

This is how we die, in a train on a planet so far away from home.

2… 1…

“NOW!” The girl cowering behind the seats shouts at the guy, who reaches out and throws the bomb.

This is it. Game over. Goodbye world.

I watch as the small, round device flies in a wide arch across the wagon, as if it moved in slow motion, watch as the countdown hits zero and the bomb turns red, right before it’s about to explode.

And then I gulp so hard it hurts deep inside my throat.

Because I can’t believe my eyes. What I’m seeing just doesn’t make sense.

Because the guy didn’t throw the bomb at us.

He threw the small, red thing at the back wall of the train car.

In a daze I watch as it erupts in an enormous, flaming explosion and with a deafening bang it rips a hole into the train’s wall, just big enough for a person to escape through.


	13. Chapter Twelve

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

11

The great book, page one, paragraph three, sentence two: 'Killing is in our nature, and therefore, death is nature's way of showing our superiority.'

That's what it says, right there, in the most important documents in the world, personally written by our great leader Setrákus Ra: Death is natural. Death inevitable. It's the price we pay for living, for breathing, for thinking, for anything we do; no matter whether it's good or bad. No matter if you are the predator or the prey. No matter if you are part of an almost completely wiped out alien race or of one that almost completely wiped it out.

Good. Bad.

Just words. Abstract words. I don't like abstraction. Dad once tried to explain it to me, but I didn't quite grasp the idea.

'Something you can't see or hear,' he had said. 'Something that's not really there.'

'Why does it have a name if it isn't really there,' I had asked. That didn't make sense.

'Well, technically, it does exist, but… it somehow doesn't, too,' he had said and scratched his neck, like he always did when he was at a loss what to do with me. 'Numbers are abstract, for example.'

That was something I understood. I like numbers. Counting, calculating, remembering. I like numbers. Seven-hundred-forty-four pages of the great book. Five-billion Mogadorian soldiers invading Lorien. Two-billion Loric defending it. Ten surviving the fight. Three of them dead. Ten minus three makes seven. Seven still alive. I like numbers. The meaning of abstract still is a mystery to me, though.

The great book, page ten, paragraph four, first sentence: 'Leaving the dead behind is inevitable for progress.'

"Inevitable." I mutter into my pillow, letting the word melt on my tongue.

I-n-e-v-i-t-a-b-l-e. Ten letters. The sound of this particular word has burned itself into my mind since ever since I first learned to read, leaving a scar of dark memories. Inevitable like the flow of time. Inevitable like the circle of life. Inevitable like progress.

Progress.

P-r-o-g-r-e-s-s. Eight letters.

'Progress is our true purpose, the one and only goal we aim at, the one and only objective worth of our glorious nation.' Page one, paragraph two, first sentence.

Progress is the most important thing in every Mogadorian's life. My people is convinced that nothing is equal to progress, every single one of us has to push progress as hard as possible, no matter the cost. It doesn't even stop at one's own life.

And progress doesn't allow sorrow, neither. Progress doesn't allow anything close to grief. Showing sympathy is not appropriate for such a superior race. No mourning, no crying, no weeping. No feelings at all, feeling mean weakness.

That's fine with me, I don't like feelings anyway. Feelings only cause trouble, trouble causes panic and panic causes seizures. I don't like feelings. The world would be better off without them.

And yet, the sight of my father's ash in this old, rusty coffee can pushes the tears into my eyes every time.

I sniff. Sadness is a feeling, and feelings equal weakness.

W-e-a-k-n-e-s-s. Eight letters again.

'Weakness stands in progress' way. All weakness needs to be crushed.' Page two, paragraph six, third sentence.

Emotions other than rage and fury can't be tolerated. Emotions other than rage and fury must be extinct. In a world of continuous progress, there's no place for unnecessary frippery like emotions.

Emotions.

E-m-…

My bedroom door opens and Kelly enters. I quickly sit up and slam the lid of Dad's coffee can shut.

"Gosh, Anivia, You're still here?" She impatiently sighs when she spots me cowering on my bed. She glares at me with that threatening, daughter-of-the-General look and I immediately stand up from my bed. I don't want to make her mad by not showing her my due respect. Not today.

I want to answer her, to explain that I was caught up in thoughts and that I forgot about time. To apologize submissively as it is expected of me. But when I open my mouth to answer, I somehow can't get a sound out. I clear my throat and try again. No success again. All that I manage is some gargling cawing. I cough a couple of times and almost choke. It feels like a big lump is stuck in my gorge, blocking the entire air pipe. An odd stinging begins to spread across my chest, pinching off my throat.

I take a quick breath and try to exhale, but somehow I can't. The sudden blockade seems to only let air in, not out. I breathe in once more, just to make sure. Yes, definitely blocked. The air is stuck in my lungs, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get it out.

My hand is shaking violently and I trip over something on the ground. Panic shoots through my mind, erasing all my thoughts, until there's only the desperate need for air. I take more and more breath, without being able to let the old oxygen out, until my lungs are filled to the top and I can't store any more. Desperately gasping for fresh air, my lips open and close uncontrollably, but still no sound escapes my throat. A spastic jerk goes through my legs, but it's the least of my worries. My eyes widen as my vision begins to blur from the lack of oxygen, and I shoot Kelly a panicked look.

"Not again," she says and yawns into her sleeve. She doesn't seem to care at all about my suffocating. "Come on, you're the one who should know what to. I'm not always here to get you out of this shit."

The world around slowly turns darker and darker. Ten maybe twenty seconds before I faint. I give Kelly another pleading glance and she finally takes pity on me.

"Your thought, Nivi, finish the thought. Gosh, why do I even have to tell you, it's not like you have those seizures all the freakin' time."

Her voice seems to come from far away, echoing like off of the walls of a tunnel.

Finish the thought, I keep repeatedly hearing her in my mind.

Thought.

T-h-o-u-g-h-t. Only seven letters.

'The right thoughts are what differs us from the minor creatures. Wasting thoughts on unnecessary matters is a hindrance and therefore dangerous to Mogadorian progress.' Page hundred-seventeen, paragraph five, fourth sentence.

Thought finished.

I gasp for breath. It still doesn't work.

It's like a part of my brain doesn't allow me to get new air into my lungs. My heart is racing, crying for fresh air to pump into my blood system.

Finish the other thought, a voice in the back of my mind seems to demand. Finish the other thought, that's what Kelly meant.

The other thought… What was the thought again?

Emotions!

E-m-o-t-i-o-n-s. Eight letters, once again.

'Ban all emotions from your soul, as they are the first step to hesitation.' Page twenty-six, paragraph one, third sentence.

Thought finished.

Once I have recited the last word of the phrase in my mind, the panicking seizure disappears, just as quickly as it came.

The lump in my throat is gone with it, and now that my throat is free again, I double over and throw up on the carpeted floor. With a loud pant I puff out all the air from my lungs and suck in fresh one.

Autism. I don't like my autism. Autism means seizures around the clock, every time I get excited or frustrated or scared or surprised…Well, every time something unexpected happens, there's a seizure. And seizures mean weakness.

I continue taking long, deep breaths. It always helps calming myself down. I count down from ten to one, an exercise Dad taught me. It keeps me busy while my mind and body returns to its usual state and I'm safe from another attack. _10, 9, 8…_

Until my heartbeat finally slows down and my muscles begin to relax again, I remain completely motionless and rigid. _4, 3, 2…_

After a while, when I have counted down from ten to one exactly fifty times, I open my eyes again, which I hadn't even noticed I had closed, and stand up from the floor, which I hadn't even noticed I had fallen to.

The short sensation of relief about being okay again quickly gets replaced by the shame and embarrassment of once again having a seizure in front of Kelly. I must never show any weakness. Especially not to her. Especially not today.

Kelly is just standing there in the doorframe, watching with a look of disgust as I painfully get on my feet. I avoid direct eye contact and brush the dust off of my blouse.

"This autism thing is getting worse, isn't it?" Kelly says as she sizes me up.

Autism.

A-u-t-i-s-m. Six letters.

One of the few words with no entry in the great book. Own definition: Hell.

Well, what can I say? The truth? The truth means admitting I'm weak. What would I accomplish by telling Kelly that my disability has been steadily deteriorating ever since Dad died six weeks, two days, and twenty one hours ago? Do I really believe that sharing this with her would make me feel any better? The best possible reply I would get from Kelly is that this whole thing is boring the shit out of her.

"I manage," I reply instead, and she gives me a crooked grin. She sees through me, she knows I'm lying, and she knows I know she knows it. And I bet my current condition amuses her, too.

Well, I probably do look quite miserable right now, still out of breath, my nose nastily runny. My short, spiky platinum hair must be a mess after wallowing on the floor.

I take a step towards Kelly to apologize for the seizure she just had to witness, to promise it won't happen again, even though we both know it will, but she immediately backs off as I come closer.

"Ew! You still just puked, Nivi. Don't come any closer, or I swear I'll have you fed to the Pikens. Get away from me, you idiot!" She screams and leans backwards to gain as much distance from me as possible.

I flinch back and mutter an apology. Kelly grimaces and shakes her head.

"Gross, you stink! How long ago was your last shower?" She says while waggling her hand in front of her nose. "Wash yourself and get dressed up, you can't meet to my father like that. You got five minutes."

"So the meeting with your father still stands?" I say in a relieved tone. After the seizure, I wasn't quite sure Kelly would keep her promise. But now that I mention my doubt, I immediately regret it. Kelly doesn't like being questioned. She frowns at me.

"Of course it still stands, or are you trying to say that I don't keep promises?" She replies. She glares at me in a way that sends icy chills down my spine, daring me to challenge her again.

"C-certainly not," I stutter and look down.

"Good," she says, satisfied she could prove who's boss once again. With a derogatory gesture she motions me to get into the bathroom. "Five minutes."

I nod.

"And, Nivi," She shouts as I turn to the bathroom door. "No more boondoggle! There's nothing the General hates more than waiting. Well, except for my beloved brother, maybe."

When I close the bathroom door, there's only four minutes and fifty-one seconds left.

* * *

Hello everybody,

As this hasn't recieved any comments up until now, I haven't updated in quite a while. If you guys want any more of this, please comment to let me know ;)  
  



	14. Chapter Thirteen

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

6

I've started scorching my sleeves at the bluely glowing force field out of boredom.

The hissing sound and the acrid stench of the cotton being dissolved in the wall of pure blue energy distracts me from our nagging problems. Or at least I'm trying to convince myself of that.

The worst thing is doing nothing all day long.

Just sitting here, damned to inactivity and not knowing what's really going on outside this stinky prison cell… it drives me crazy. I miss moving around freely, I even miss training, and most of all I miss talking to people.

People other than Nine, that is.

Well, to be honest, he's not much of a talker at all. Every time I try to start a conversation, all he gives me are vague, one-word answers. Either he is still pissed for whatever reason he had that outburst a day or so ago, or he's just very shy and bad at conversation.

And from what I've seen so far, he doesn't really seem like the shy type.

So I stopped trying to get him to talk to me a while ago and decided to think about a way out of here instead.

Without success, unfortunately.

My stomach growls and I press my hand against it to stop the noise. When did I last eat something? Must have been at breakfast, the morning we got captured. My mouth begins watering when I think back to the bulks of tasty food we had back then. I'd eaten at least half a dozen toasts with strawberry jam, my favourite flavour, and a glass of Ella's fresh, hand-pressed orange juice. God, I would _kill_ for just one more sip of it.

I close me eyes and picture the seven of us – John, me, Marina, Eight, Nine, Ella and Sarah – sitting at the kitchen table, not a care in the world, happy that we're all together. Eating piles of food, joking around, planning our next steps.

My stomach's hungry growl reminds me that just imagining all this won't get us closer to eating anything, either.

The guards haven't brought us food in all the time we've been here, neither anything to drink. I wonder how long we can survive until we die from dehydration. One more day, maybe two? If I don't croak from boredom until then.

I glance at Nine. He's sitting a few feet away from me, trying to play the cool guy, leaning backwards on his elbows, half a crooked grin on his face. He's been surprisingly calm since the outburst of emotions he'd had when I had first woken up in this cell. After agent Walker had told us they had captured Five, I expected him to be out of his mind.

But he's not. The whole thing about Five doesn't seem to bother him at all. What seems to bother him are the short beard stubbles have grown on his chin in the past two days. He keeps scratching and running his hands through them, and it starts to really drive me mad. He makes such a big deal around his chin, you could think we don't have other problems.

He shoots me a quick glance and our eyes meet. He blushes and turns away.

"What?" I say, when I finally have enough. Nine raises an eyebrow.

"What what?" He says in an innocent tone and looks at me with hypocritical eyes.

"What were you staring at?" I say, and he immediately blushes. Not quite as self-assured now, huh?

"I wasn't staring… I was just… thinking of a way to get out of here," he hesitatingly says.

I allow myself an amused grin about his excuse. He shyly looks away and scratches the tiny beard on his chin. Desperate for a conversation to distract me from the boredom, I try to grab the chance before we fall silent again.

"Right, so, did you come up with something to bust us out of here?"

"Actually, yeah," He says, staring at a spot in the blue force field.

"Well, are you going to tell me?" I ask, hoping to keep up the talking. He seems to consider if it's actually worth telling me for a moment, then he sits up and straightens his back.

"Okay, here it is. Next time agent Walker comes in through that hole in the force field, we take her by surprise, knock her out and escape through the hole before it closes again. Simple as that."

Nine looks at me with big eyes, waiting for me to congratulate on his brilliant plan. He reminds me of Ella, when she shows me one of her drawings. Fishing for compliments.

I almost laugh.

"And then what? There definitely are more guards here than just Walker. What do you expect us to do, just trash our way out?"

"I'm sure we'll figure something out once we are outside," Nine replies with a shrug. He's definitely disappointed I don't appreciate his incredible plan.

"And how can you be so sure Walker will even come back at all. For all we know, they might just let us rot in here until we're just skin and bones."

Nine shakes his head.

"Nah, if they had wanted to kill us, they could have just done that any time in the past two days. I think they got something else for us in mind," he says and lays back.

I know what he means. Our captors haven't killed us yet, because still they need us. They are setting up a trap, with Nine and I as the bait. They think that as long as they keep us alive, the other Garde will try to save us. They're trying to get to them through us. That's the only explanation I can come up with for why they wouldn't just kill us right away. They didn't hesitate to kill One, Two and Three, so why would they show mercy to us, if not for their own benefit?

Nine clears his throat. He strokes his long dark hair back and, surprisingly enough, he changes the topic.

"So, Six… With all this saving-the-world stuff going on, I feel like we should get to know each other better," Nine silently mutters.

He lays on his back, staring at the ceiling, and I can tell it took him quite some overcoming to get out this sentence.

I tilt my head. He might be the shy type after all.

"Okay, let me see… I'm an alien from another planet so far away, the journey to earth took one whole year. I'm one of the last of my species that survived a senseless war and now I have to live in constant fear of being found and killed by bloodthirsty monsters that won't rest until they have wiped out every single one of us.

In my free time, I like picking flowers, writing cheesy crap in my little pink diary and exchanging gossip about boys with my friends," I say and Nine frowns at me.

"Come on, what do you expect me to me to say?" I smirk.

"Tell me about your life on earth, you know, after we landed," he answers with a straight face.

"Seriously? You want me to tell me about my boring, sheltered life? A tough guy like you would actually care about a wimp like me?"

My voice drips from sarcasm, but, as usual, he doesn't get it and actually seems to take the 'tough guy' part as a compliment.

"Well, as I said, I feel like we should get to know each other, anyway," he replies, as if to console me, and I have to suppress the urge to smack him in the face.

"Alright, my life… Well, obviously, it was all about Katarina," Nine gives me an irritated glance.

"My Cêpan," I explain.

"What was she like?" He asks, and I start wondering what this is really all about. Seriously, what does he care about Katarina?

"Well, obviously, she was like a mother to me. Probably even more than just that. I don't know, she was really all I ever had, all I could ever hold on to. The only consistent thing in my non-stop changing life. She always had her duties in mind, but also left me my space when I needed it. She was just…" I stop before I get too emotional.

"I just wish she was here right now. She would know what to do."

"Yeah, that's what I've been thinking all along. If our Cêpan were here, things would look quite differently," Nine mumbles. I nod, even though that's not what I actually meant to say. What I meant to say is that I'm missing Katarina.

Forever.

We stay silent for a few moments. The constant buzz of the static force field is the only sound in our little prison cell.

"Did your Cêpan ever let you go to school?" Nine asks after a while.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, after months of begging, she allowed me to, but I had to be on alert all the time. If there was anything suspicious, I'd have to be on the run immediately."

"Did that happen often?" He asks and sits up again.

"All the time. There was that one time in a small town near the Mexican border; it was our third week there, and I was just getting used to the new school and everything. We were in the middle of PE class - it was summer and our school had its own pool, so we were allowed to swim in there – when Katarina suddenly drives right up to the school's entrance in our jeep and yells at me to jump in. News of strange men strolling through the region whose description barely even matched the Mogadorians' had been enough for her. Just like that, she had decided to pick me up in the middle of school and to never return again.

All my classmates were watching with their mouth open as I got out of the pool and trotted to the car with nothing on but my wet swimming suit. There would be time to change into dry clothes later."

I make a short pause to look up and check if Nine is still paying attention. You wouldn't believe it, but he is. Sitting with his legs pulled to his chest, he listens to every word I say. So I continue.

"I hated this constant running away. Every time I found the few friends I was allowed to have, we just had to disappear. Every time we stayed longer than a couple of weeks, and I thought that this time, I might get the chance to live a normal life, bam," I throw my hands up in the air in frustration, "out of nowhere some threat appears and Katarina and I move again."

Nine nods sympathetically.

"Ever left any boyfriends behind on one of these runs?" he asks in an overly casual way.

"What?" I raise an eyebrow. The question took me completely by surprise.

"Boyfriends, you know, lovers, admirers, whatever."

"No, never had any. How about you? Any vengeful ex-girlfriends I should know about?"

Nine blushes and looks away. "Not too many."

He thoughtfully scratches the small beard on his chin. It's hard to admit this, but I actually like the short stubbles. They add something more mature to his otherwise rather baby-facelike features.

I shrug, turn away and get back to singing my sleeves.

I still don't understand his sudden interest in my life, but at least it's helped pass some time. Not too much, but I'm grateful for any distraction.

Nine clears his throat behind me. "So, umm… Tell me, how was it for you, living among humans?"

I almost smirk at his desperate attempts to try and keep up the conversation. It's like we've swapped roles.

"Well, I always felt different than the humans. I could never commit to anything other kids my age would do, out of fear that someone might find out who I really was. I always had to keep in mind that if somebody lifted our secret, they would put me in some science laboratory and do all kinds of experiments."

"Can't trust these humans, huh?" Nine grins and shakes his head.

"Actually, that's not what I meant at all," I reply. "Why are you always so down on humans anyway?"

Nine laughs. "Well, 'cause they're humans, duh. They're selfish, greedy and they destroy everything they get their grip on."

"Are you still talking about the humans? 'Cause that sounds a lot more like the Mogs to me," I say in a mocking voice and turn around to him.

"That's exactly the point. I've been thinking…"

"Wow, thinking?" I interrupt him and he crooks half a grin.

"…And I've come to the conclusion that the Mogadorians and the humans share way too many traits. They both start wars for no reason, destroy their own planets out of greed and they both treat other races with arrogance and cruelty. That's probably why the US-government is getting along with the Mogs so well. Because humans and Mogs both are heartless, evil creatures, who enjoy seeing others crawl in the dirt" he says.

I stare at him with my mouth open in indignation. Did he really say that? I look for a sign that he's just joking, but his face is completely straight.

"Seriously? You actually believe in that bullshit?" I ask and he shrugs.

"It's the truth, Six. I was in a prison cell like this one for a whole year because a human betrayed me to the Mogs,"

"Okay, so there are some humans who have similarities to Mogs, but that's a minority. You're forgetting about the rest. Think of all the humans that helped us instead of fighting alongside the Mogs. Take Sarah, for example…" I say, but Nine cuts me off.

"To be honest, Six, the only thing Sarah has ever done is slowing the rest of us down. We're trying to fight an entire alien species here! Having to babysit a human in the process only adds to the impossibility of the task."

I glare at him in shock.

"That's what you think? That just because she might be weaker, she's superfluous? You're not better than the Mogs, Nine."

"Maybe," he replies with a shrug. "But that's not the point. I just don't see how Sarah fits into this whole thing. It's ridiculously dangerous, and chances are that none of us gets out of this alive. It would have been better for everyone, including her, if we had just dumped her somewhere on the way from that military base in New Mexico. For her own good.

You see, it's not that I can't stand humans, I'm just saying that you shouldn't rely on them. They're just not trustworthy."

"What about our greeters? The people who helped us when we landed on earth? They have been chosen by the Loric themselves, so they must be somehow trustworthy."

Nine laughs out loudly.

"The greeters? Tell me, Six, where are they now? Now that we need them the most, where are those greeters? Where are your brave and strong humans? They're hiding, 'cause they have given up hope on us, trying not to be spotted and punished by the Mogs. And what do you expect them to do, anyway. After all, they're just humans. It's not like they could walk in here and just demand our release. They wouldn't stand a chance against the Mogadorians in combat. No, we're on our own for this one. The only way out of here is punching ourselves through."

"Alright, humans aren't as physically fast and strong as us or the Mogs are. So what?"

"So what? Survival of the fittest, Six. It's what your precious humans themselves preach. The strong will dominate and the weak will have to bow down," he says, and I'm not sure if he's being sarcastic. I hope he is.

And anyway, didn't he just say that treating other races as inferior is one of the Mogs' worst traits? And now he's doing it himself.

I'm about to mention this, when suddenly the buzz of the force field around us gets louder for apparently no reason. I look around and notice a hole in the bluely glowing wall slowly opening up to my left. While it gets bigger, someone puts his head through the not yet fully opened hole and peeks into our cell. It takes me a few seconds to realize that person is agent Walker.

Her face has changed since I've last seen her, which can't be more than half a day ago. It's covered in frizzing wrinkles, as if she's grown older by many years. Her upper lip is chapped. She must have been biting it a lot in the last hours.

She has so many dark rings under her eyes that her face has some similarities with a turtle's. The right corner of her mouth keeps twitching in sudden spasms, as if she has lost all control of her own expressions. Her otherwise so carefully arranged red hair is now hanging around her head in loose strokes. The bandage she wears on her forehead has slipped down a bit and expose countless scuffs, scratches and other open wounds, some still bleeding.

She doesn't wait until the hole in the field has completely opened, but just jumps through when there's just enough space for her. As she does, she slightly touches the edge of the force field FBI uniform gets scorched around her right shoulder.

She doesn't even notice.

Instead she shrieks at us in an oddly pitched voice, and I flinch.

"WHO'S THE BOY?" she screams out of her mind. "Tell me right now, who's the god damn boy?"

What on earth is she talking about? I shoot Nine a quick glance, but his puzzled look tells me he's just as confused as I am. In fact, he seems so distracted by her bizarre appearance, that he forgot about his glorious plan to knock her out and escape through the hole.

"You don't want to answer? You think you are smarter than me? You think ol' agent Walker is stupid?" She lets out a pitched, hysterical laugh. The flickering blue light of the force field casts creepy shadows that give her a menacing look. Then her expression suddenly turns back serious and she rips her eyes wide open.

"Don't worry, my little alien friends, ol' agent Walker will make you speak," she says and the corner of her mouth twitches again. I get a bad feeling about what she might mean with that.

"That's right, the FBI has some techniques to make people talk."

With that said, she crooks a malicious smile and turns around towards the hole in the force field.

"Jenkins, give me your gun," she shouts to someone who must be standing just outside our prison cell.

"Ma'am, I don't think that will be necessa…," a man's voice begins to answer, but Walker cuts him off.

"I will be the one to decide what's necessary, Jenkins. If you have anything to say, we can to talk to Mr. Purdy about it, I'm sure he'll like the idea of you disobeying orders again," she hisses in a bittersweet tone that gives me goosebumps.

"No, Ma'am. Sorry Ma'am," the man stutters back, obviously intimidated by the agent. And who could blame this guy? Walker looks scary as hell in the glimmering blue light of the force field, and the way she speaks sends icy chills down my neck.

A rifle is thrown into the prison cell through the hole, and Walker takes her time picking it up. With an insane grin on her lips, she turns back to us, pointing the gun at us. She grimaces and bares her deeply yellow teeth.

"Now, my little alien friends, is there something you want to tell me? I'll ask you this one last time, who is the boy?"

She cocks the rifle and gives us and impatient glare.

Usually, I'd stay calm in this situation. Usually, I have nerves of steal. I've been at this end of a gun too often in the last few weeks to even be afraid of it now. But it's not the gun that causes the panic to rise in my chest right now, it's the person holding it.

The agent's face is one whole grimace of nervous twitching and wincing. I doubt that it's just a strategy to intimidate us.

Something's obviously wrong with her. She doesn't behave like a normal person would, not even close to that. She doesn't seem to notice the bleeding wounds on her head, she laughs hysterically at everything like a madman, and she is about to shoot us if we don't tell her who some boy is. It's like she's so obsessed with hating us, she forgets how to human.

The most disturbing thing, though, are her eyes. With a fiery, insane look they scurry all around the room, not really fixating on anything specific, as if she doesn't actually perceive her surroundings, just her enemies. Which unfortunately are Nine and me.

I may not know exactly about her mental condition, but one thing is for sure: she will pull the trigger if we don't give her the answers she wants. And she's going to do it soon.

"What boy do you mean? You know, a little more details than just 'who's the god damn boy' would help," Nine says, his voice a bit hoarse. He stands up and takes a step towards Walker.

He's trying to play the tough guy again, acting all self-confident and so, while it's pretty obvious that he's just as scared of the agent as I am. At her current state, who knows what she could do. An unpredictable enemy is even worse than one with mere power.

"The boy, _the boy_ , my little alien friends," she yelps with her eyes so wide open I almost expect her eyeballs to just drop out of their sockets. "The boy that helped number Five to escape, who else, silly kiddo. The boy, the boy… Oh yes, my dear alien friends, ol' agent Walker knows you know him. You have to know him. So who is he? Whooooooooo is he?" she slurs.

"Wait, Five escaped?" I ask and instantly regret it. We mustn't let her know that we actually have no idea who number Five is – we don't even know if it's a boy or a girl – not to mention this mysterious boy that helped her or him escape. If she finds that out, we're screwed.

Luckily, she doesn't seem to have heard me. She's too busy glaring at some point in the force field behind us.

I catch Nine's eyes, and he shrugs. He's just as clueless as I am about what to do now.

I remember his plan about knocking agent Walker out and escaping through the hole. Maybe, if we can distract her somehow…

I turn back to Walker, who has begun to slowly topple in our direction. She aims the rifle back and forth between Nine's head and mine. Every time she points it at me, I flinch, but I don't dare to show too much of a reaction. It might provoke her.

Like a wolf stalking its prey, the agent comes closer and closer. Her finger already hovers above the trigger. I can hear her rattling breath as she thinks about just pulling it. It can't take much longer until she realizes we have no idea what she's talking about.

"Ma'am, the Mogadorian representative is here," the voice of the man that Walker was talking to earlier suddenly sounds through our cell and rips the agent out of her animalistic state. "He demands to talk to you, Ma'am."

Walker hesitates for a moment.

"He demands to talk to you, _right now_ , Ma'am," the man says again.

"I'm going, I'm going," Walker yells back and reluctantly turns around to walk through the hole in the force field.

As she steps our of our cell, the hole begins to close quickly. Our last chance to escape. If we want to make our move, it has to be now. But I'm still too shocked, too shaken to even think about moving.

The hole is just big enough for us to see her face when she turns back around to us.

"And my little alien friends, don't think ol' agent Walker forgot about. Oh no, ol' agent Walker never forgets. And ol' agent Walker never forgives."

The cruel, sinister smile on her lips is the last thing I see before the hole fully disappears again.


	15. Chapter Fourteen

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

11

The walls appear somehow darker and gloomier than ever as I follow Kelly through the long hallways of the underground Ashwood Estates base.

I’ve only been allowed to get so deep down into the important areas a few times, and I don’t like it. Too many dark corners.

“Here we go, Nivi,” Kelly says and we take the last turn.

The corridor with General Andrakkus Sutekh’s briefing room appears even more threatening than the rest of this place. The ceiling is painted red, with the emblem of my people in black: Our great leader’s face in front of the letters M and P.

M P as in Mogadorian progress. M P as in malicious predators. M P as in monstrous pillagers.

M P as in murdering people. People I love.

As we come closer, I spot the General’s personal standing in the shadows of the big door to the briefing room.

Four big, vat-born Mogadorian soldiers with long, violent daggers. Very impressive.

They’re known to be the best of the best. Outstanding by both experience and skill in combat. The vat-born’s elite.

The four of them keep anyone from entering, except for people with special appointments. The General is very busy these days, and there’s a long queue of way more important people than me who are all trying to get into a meeting with him.

Being the General’s daughter’s friend has its benefits after all. I should be grateful for what I can get.

Grateful.

G-r-a-t-e-f-u-l. Eight letters.

Being grateful is the natural reaction to receiving benefits. The natural reaction to benefits such as the compassion and sympathy Kelly has been showing me over the past few weeks.

I’m not good at natural reactions, they usually either fail to appear completely, or just partly pop up. Dad had once explained to me that, for interaction with other living beings, the absence of natural reactions can lead to the interaction not functioning properly, as the other person will often not quite understand what you mean.

That’s why I often have to force those natural reactions, which leads to them actually not being natural anymore, which makes the whole thing paradoxical therefore and senseless. Dad had told me to do it anyway. It would help me to not feel too different. What it actually does is help the others to not feel I’m too different.

Well, to be honest, Kelly hasn’t arranged this meeting just out of compassion and sympathy, though. Words like compassion and sympathy probably don’t even exist in her vocabulary; and if they do, they probably don’t mean much more to her than the little earthworms she still picks up from time to time to play around with.

Not that it’s something to complain about, I doubt that any Mogadorian knows such words. In fact, compared to other Mogs our age, Kelly actually is a lovely young lady, with way more compassion and sympathy towards weaker people like me than any of the others. Unlike them, she doesn’t bully me around or laughs at my disability. Or at least not quite as often.

She might be the ‘spoiled princess of Ashwood’, as some jealous kids our age call her behind her back, but she is the only thing close to a friend I have.

And even though she usually behaves like the whole world - especially I - should bow down to her, she helped me get through those weeks after Dad died. I’ll never forget that. Never.

In these weeks, when she was about the only person I’d talk to, we’ve grown a lot closer together. I had never imagined it would be possible for me to experience this, but during this time, I’ve actually come to really appreciate her. You could even call the bond between us, well, friendship.

Friendship.

F-r-i-e-n-d-s-h-i-p. Ten letters.

I think I’ve understood this concept. If two people get along well with each other, it’s called friendship. I definitely do get along well with Kelly – to the point that I almost like her – and I think that she actually does fell the same about me, even though she doesn’t show that for some reason. She usually treats me like dirt, but my Dad had once explained to me that people sometimes do the opposite of what they actually feel.

I didn’t really understand why. But Dad usually knew his stuff really well.

Despite all this, the actual reason why Kelly had a meeting with her father arranged in the first place was not out of compassion but pure selfishness. The truth is that she actually uses me as an excuse to finally get an audience with her father. She needs me, because apparently the General doesn’t take her seriously in private. By arranging a meeting for me, she hopes to finally get the chance to tell him what she wanted to tell him for years already.

This meeting is not about me, that’s just a pretext. It’s about her. It’s always about her.

Kelly and I both want the same thing from the General, though, and that’s the only reason I’ve agreed to this whole thing. That, and the fact that Kelly threatened to feed me to the Pikens if I don’t.

Freedom.

F-r-e-e-d-o-m. Seven letters.

We both want freedom.

‘Freedom is a fool’s illusion. All of us are just another part of the game of fate. And this game has only one rule: Progress. There is no room for illusions.’ The great book, page fourteen, paragraph two, second sentence.

I don’t believe in this part.

It contradicts everything they teach us in Mogschool, but I don’t believe in this part.

Freedom is not just an illusion. It’s more.

I believe in freedom.

And so does Kelly.

Just like me, Kelly has been caged in this base for almost all her life. We may live at the surface and not so deep down here, but all in all it’s the same thing. The furthest she ever gets away from here is on rare trips to the Washington D.C. city center. She finally wants to have the freedom to travel around the world for a while, even if that means having to live among humans. To get to know the planet she’s going to be a part of ruling over in a couple of years, when the Mogadorians have taken over world domination. To _do_ something instead of being trapped in an underground fortress.

‘Gosh, I can’t believe we’re still hiding down here. It’s like we’re the ones who are afraid of the humans, not the other way around.’ she had said during one of those long conversations we’ve had lately. Well, it’s not exactly what you could call a conversation.

I’ve looked the definition up in a dictionary. The term ‘conversation’ can only be used when both interlocutors take part in the dialogue.

In our case, mostly Kelly just kept bragging about pretty much everything there is to brag about. I don’t mind, I never know what to say when having a ‘conversation’, anyway. But it’s not a correct conversation. I’ll just call it talk. Talk.

So during those talks, Kelly’s made it pretty clear that she wants to get away from this place. And Kelly usually gets what she wants.

That was one part of our talks, escaping the Ashwood Estates. But as much as Kelly wished for that, there has always been that one other subject she would always talk about. The one big question that just doesn’t seem to leave her mind for a minute.

Something you’d never expect of the spoiled princess of Ashwood.

Something unselfish, kindhearted.

In fact, what she told me was just so surprising I had a seizure.

In the very beginning, the day she had found me crying over my Dad’s ashes for the first time, her talks had still been limited to small rants about life’s little injustices. She had done that for me, to cheer me up, to distract me from Dad’s death. It’s hard to believe that the cold-hearted, arrogant girl that is walking in front of me right now with her head held high is the same girl that had the mercy to be there for me when I was drowning in grief and sorrow about Dad. She was the only one who cared all this time, and she still is.

I definitely show how grateful I am for that, and that’s another reason I agreed to her plan to convince the General to let us leave.

She might be the daughter of an important and powerful leader of my people but that was not one of the reasons. And she might be in such a high social and military position that she could as well just order me to come along, but that’s not one of the reasons, either. No. Not one of the reasons. Not one of the reasons why I’m following her right now. No.

I’m following her because she is… I stop dead in my tracks for a second, before the word comes to my mind.

Different.

D-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t. Nine letters.

‘The right thoughts are what differs us from the minor creatures. Wasting thoughts on unnecessary matters is a hindrance and therefore dangerous to Mogadorian progress.’ Page hundred-seventeen, paragraph five, fourth sentence.

But Kelly is not just different from minor creatures, she’s different from everyone else, too.

And that’s exactly the reason why I’m following her. Because she’s different.

And because I am different, too.

If I wasn’t, Kelly surely wouldn’t have told me the things I know now. She knows that anybody else would just report her to the authorities right away. Anybody else would dismiss her views as treason and that would have cost her her high social and military position at least. If not her head.

If I was anyone else, Kelly wouldn’t have trusted me.

But I’m not anyone else. I’m Nivi. Yes, that’s me, Nivi. Nivi, the one Kelly trusted. It’s me.

I don’t dare thinking about the content of those talks, though. Not right now. What she told me was so revolutionary and shocking, every time I do think about it I have one of my autistic seizures.

Some people would call those talks eye-opening, even I don’t quite understand this expression. When you suddenly understand something you didn’t understand before, it’s not like you open your eyes, more like a barrier in your brain suddenly broke and then you can think about things in a different way. I’d rather call it barrier-breaking.

I often had that sensation when Dad would explain things to me. And the exact same thing happened with Kelly. She’d say everything in a way that even I could understand them, so all in all you can say that she’s a very barrier-breaking person.

That also is part of the big Kelly-mystery, that imposed itself on me in the past weeks.

On one hand there’s Kelly Sutekh, daughter of the General, who is an arrogant prick who brags about how she could do everything better than everybody else. The Kelly Sutekh who gets everything she ever asks for and still complains about how unfair her life is. The Kelly Sutekh who is my commander.

On the other hand, there’s the Kelly Sutekh who is different. The Kelly Sutekh who doesn’t even seem to think in a Mogadorian way at all. The Kelly Sutekh who is my friend.

She keeps switching between those two states. Most of the time when we’re alone, she’s gently and understanding as the friend-Kelly. The rest of the time she’s harsh and ignorant as the commander-Kelly.

Two halves of the same person. Just like two different coats she can put on whenever she wants to.

Right now, she’s the commander-type, pride and arrogance shining in her eyes, her straight back and bullish walk display confidence and nervousness at the same. I try imitating her posture, but it just looks ridiculous on me.

On me. Nivi. Nivi, that’s me. Nivi, still the one Kelly trusted.

Trusted with some seriously irritating, shocking, radical, almost scandalous stuff.

Again, I have to stop my thoughts from moving onwards. The excitement and mixed opinions in my mind from just thinking about all that she told me is already making me nervous. I can’t risk a seizure right now. The ideas she has talked about - strange, foreign, _alien_ ideas from a Mogadorian’s point of view, the exact opposite of what you would expect the daughter of a General to believe – it is too much of a threat. If someone found out about all that, Kelly would be dead within minutes.

And if someone found out that I had known all this time, I’d join her promptly. Not to mention what would happen if someone discovered my own secrets.

Secrets.

S-e-c-r-e-t-s. Seven letters.

‘A man with secrets is dangerous to his fellow men. Keeping secrets from the cause therefore is a crime. A cohesive society is the key to progress.’ The great book, page twenty-six, paragraph two, first, second and third sentence.

I am a criminal, no question. That’s what the great book says. But I didn’t choose to be a criminal, no. Dad did. Dad chose for me when he saved my life. Dad chose. Not me. Not Nivi, No.

 

The four guards motion us to stop as we approach them. Kelly throws her head back into the nape of her neck to look them in their cruel faces, but I don’t bother to. The floor is way less intimidating.

The guards announce our arrival to the General through the closed door of the briefing room. The general is in the middle of an appointment with someone else right now, so we have to wait until they have finished discussing their matters.

Kelly lets out an impatient sigh and frowns at the guards. Her father isn’t the only one who hates waiting.

“Now, now, young lady,” one of the vat-born guards says in an overly mocking tone and pokes her with the tip of his dagger. “Don’t you be so antsy.”

For a second my heart makes a jump. Any regular guard allowing himself to talk to the General’s daughter in such a disrespecting way must have either gone crazy or grown tired of life. Someone of such a high rank as Kelly would just outright order the execution of this guy for this. If this was anyone else than her, the guard’s life would be worth less than a straw right now.

And a straw is not worth much, if that is not clear.

But the fact that the soldiers are treating Kelly so lax is nothing extraordinary around here. Being the General’s daughter, Kelly has a lot more contact to the soldiers than anyone else our age, and she gets along pretty well with all of them. Growing up in their middle, with a father that never had time and two brothers that almost killed each other, the vat-born soldiers have become almost like family replacement for her over the years. A really big family, maybe, but it still is better than nothing.

Better than what _I_ got left. Which actually is nothing. Nothing except for Kelly. Yep, only got Kelly left.

So instead of punishing the soldier, Kelly just laughs and dramatically fakes being hurt, holding her side as if the dagger has caused some serious damage. The guard that poked her laughs and pats her shoulder.

I watch the whole thing and can’t help but be jealous. For a Mogadorian, Kelly is exceptionally social. Despite being raised as an ignorant prick, she treats every Mogadorian with respect, no matter his military status or his origins or whatever the other kids our age judge people by. An almost generous characteristic, considering how other people in her position deal ordinary soldiers. She doesn’t seem to care if someone is trueborn or has been artificially created in one of the underground breeding stations, she just sees the Mog in everyone.

And unlike me, she doesn’t have a congenital disability that prevents her from normal social interaction. No, she doesn’t. Jealous.

Anyway, actual trueborns like Kelly have become rarer these days, and because of that, most of them believe they are somewhat special and just overall _better_ than the vat-born.

Vat-born.

V-a-t-b-o-r-n.

It’s strange, but there’s no entry in the great book about them, either. I’ve often thought about that. About why there is no mentioning of our artificially created conspecifics. Perhaps our great leader just didn’t think they’re important enough to mention them when he wrote the great book.

Or he didn’t want _them_ to think they’re important enough.

‘Either way, it’s an issue that needs to be dealt with,’ Dad would always say. ‘In the last few years, the Mogadorian society has been splitting apart more and more. On the one side, there’s the trueborn, a small percentage of the total Mog population, but still the ones in charge, the ones with all the power. They are drowning in wealth and luxury knickknacks, while the vat-born plug away at the dirty and hard work.’

That was a concept I understand, Mogadorian social structures. No abstract nonsense, just straightout facts.

It has been like that for ever, with the trueborn reigning over the rest, and it has never been a problem, neither from the vat-born side, nor from the trueborn one. Up until a few years.

‘Discipline, awe and duty, these are three principles our lives are dedicated to. Our discipline makes us strong, our awe makes us smart, and our duty gives us a purpose.’ Page three, paragraph one, first sentence.

Under these conditions, the vat-born were created. Our great leader himself was part of the brilliant minds behind the project. Him and some expert scientists had been working on it for years, until in the end the result were the vat-born.

The perfect soldiers.

Discipline, awe and duty, the three characteristics every vat-born inherits at his or her birth. They cover each aspect an ideal Mogadorian needs, and additionally guarantee absolute obedience. Without a will of their own, there’s no questioning orders. Simple but brilliant logic.

During the chemical breeding process, every vat-born is being artificially programmed to follow these laws, no matter what situation it might personally get them into. Once a vat-born comes out of the breeding facilities, it feels an overwhelming need to obey every order their military superiors give them without thinking twice. No morals, no individuality, just another face in the unstoppable army of Mogadore, waiting to crush the enemy.

‘The gap between the two different kinds of the same race got bigger and bigger over the years, with the trueborn shamelessly exploiting the vat-born unconditional loyalty,’ Dad had once explained to me when I had asked him. ‘At the first great expansion, on the glorious day the Mogadorians overcame Lorien, half of the entire vat-born population died on the battlefield. The trueborn simply used them as cannon fodder for their strategies, with a frightening amount of tasteless disregard of vat-born lives.

After the battle, they simply replaced the dead soldiers with new ones, not even mentioning the price the vat-born had paid.

Of course, that was the plan all the way. Having an endless supply of loyal soldiers. It was the reason why our great leader created the vat-born in the first place.

But after the bloodbath on Lorien, there were some who questioned this throwing-away of lives. The vat-born were Mogadorians, too, after all, and a few voices that had the courage to speak out criticized the way the trueborn didn’t care about their artificial brothers in the tiniest bit.

Those voices were shut down immediately, cruelly eliminated for high treason and sedition. For a long time, no one dared to say a word, fearing to share the fate of the first few who were unfortunate enough to publicly admit their opinion.’

‘But Dad,’ I had replied, ‘What’s the difference between them and us? I mean, biologically, we’re almost the same. Why shouldn’t we treat vat-born like trueborn?’

‘That’s exactly the point, Nivi,’ he had said. ‘Sympathy for the weak - the vat-born in this case - is viewed as a fatal character trait in the Mogadorian society. Our great leader benefits from us trueborn believing we should treat the vat-born as dirt, so he doesn’t want that to change.’

I had nodded, because that’s something I understand. Straightout facts. Yes. I like facts.

Our great leader had relied on society’s cruelty and ignorance. He had been sure the few objectors that had ever doubted him had been extinguished.

Well, as I found out during those conversations with Kelly, he was wrong.

The door to the briefing room suddenly opens and I’m surprised to see a human walk out. Judging by all the badges pinned to his anorak, he must be an important military man. As he leaves the briefing room, I hear the General’s loud, rough voice call after him.

“Don’t think you’ll just get away like that, agent Purdy. Be careful with your next moves, or I swear your country will regret ever having deceived the unstoppable force of Mogadore.”

All the colour is drained from the human’s face as he doubles his pace, storms past us and rushes towards the exit. As he disappears around the corner and I shoot Kelly a nervous glance, but she doesn’t seem to know what this was about, either.

The vat-born guards give us permission to enter the briefing room and I turn my attention back to the impending meeting with the General.

The General. I’m meeting him. Me. Nivi. It’s me. Meeting the General. My hands start shaking at the fact that I’ll be standing face to face to one of the most important Mogadorians in history.

General.

G-e-n-e-r-a-l. I’m so nervous I need my fingers to count the letters. Four, Five, Six, Seven. Seven letters.

‘Reaching the rank of a Mogadorian General is the rarest and biggest honor there is. A General’s skill in combat, his faith in progress, hisdedication to our cause and his never ending will to fight exceed the average by far and are an example of the perfect Mogadorian.’ Page sixty-nine, paragraph four, third and fourth sentence.

Blessed with an iron will and a precise sense for opportunities, General Andrakkus Suketh had quickly moved up the social and military ladder in his early years. The big hopes that were put into him weren’t let down when he lead the first great expansion in Lorien.

One of the strongest and mightiest warriors of our race, and a brilliant tactician, too. That’s what the Mog teachers keep preaching in our little Mog schools. He might even take our great leader’s place some day.

Well, in reality, the General is way more than _just_ strong, mighty and brilliant. He’s a scary, ruthless, unpredictable Mogadorian with the tendency to kill before breakfast; some even call him Setrákus Ra’s right hand.

One thing is for sure, this man has killed more people than anyone else in Mog history. And surely he won’t hesitate before knocking your head off at the slightest sign of disobedience.

Kelly turns to me and gives my shaking hands a disapproving look.

“Stop that,” she says in a way that has some resemblance to her father’s harsh tone. “When we’re in there,” she motions over her shoulder towards the briefing room, “you mustn’t show any weakness, you hear me? Under no circumstances, is that clear? No shaking, no stuttering, and pray to god that you won’t have another seizure. If my father finds out about your autism thing, he’ll immediately dump you somewhere in the surveying area and you’ll never get out of there, not in a thousand years. So, never show any sign of weakness, or your only chance will dissolve into ashe, understood?”

 _Our_ only chance, she means. This opportunity is as important to her as to me, if not even more. If I fail to somehow trick the General into believing I’m ready to live outside of Ashwood Estates – which I’m definitely not –, then he won’t give Kelly the permission either.

At least, that’s what Kelly is convinced of. Personally, I don’t see the connection between her and me, but who am I to question the General’s daughter.

I nod to let her know she’s not going to be let down. I want to say something reassuring, too, because people like being lied to, but I don’t know what to say. I never know what to say. Most of the things I do say somehow don’t come out the way I want them to.

It has to do with my autism, Dad had once explained to me. He had told me that a normal brain filters out ninety percent of all the incoming information, so that the conscious thinking doesn’t overload with unnecessary stuff. My own brain is usually just like that, as normal as anyone else’s. But sometimes, when I am suddenly interrupted in the middle of my thoughts – just like earlier today – or I’m under big pressure, or sometimes even just for no reason at all, a switch inside my mind gets triggered and this filter suddenly stops working. Then, all the unimportant details from my surroundings all hit me at once, my whole subconscious gets emptied right on me and I have a seizure.

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ Dad would always tell me when I came home crying from school after the other kids had bullied me around again. ‘It’s okay, it’s a part of you. Just don’t let it get you down. One day you will see things differently, and then you’ll understand this is not’

He would then hug me and gently stroke my hair back very unmogadorianlike while I would bury my face in his uniform. That’s what I miss the most, the safety of his embrace, the silent songs he would always hum, that caring look in his big purple eyes.

I close my eyes for a second and shake my head. Thinking back to the good times isn’t what will help me get through the meeting with the General.

Focus.

F-o-c…

No, I can’t get distracted anymore.

I gulp, trying my best to block out the protest of the autistic part of my brain. I can’t let anything distract me from the current situation, shove the precious memories away.

I have to be strong, I tell myself. Strong and brave, like Dad. He gave his life to the cause, even if he wasn’t as convinced as the others. Even if he doubted the reasons for our presence on this stranger planet so far away from Mogadore, he still gave his life for the cause. For progress.

And now, I have to be strong for him. Put in a complex way, it was progress that saved my life as he rescued me back from the bloodbath on Lorien.

And for his sake, so that all he did won’t be for nothing, I take a deep breath, pull myself together and follow Kelly into the briefing room.

Be strong.

Strong.

S-t-r-o-n-g.

‘Only the strong will survive. Only the strong will prevail. Only the strong can travel the glorious path of progress.’ Page six, Paragraph one, sixth sentence.

Only the strong will not panic when standing face to face with the General himself.

And slowly, I begin to realize I’m not of the strong kind.


	16. Chapter Fifteen

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

4

 

I keep staring into the thick layer of smoke around us, trying to catch a last glimpse of Marina disappearing through the hole in the back wall of the train car. For a split-second, I can make out her long, dark hair shortly flutters in the wind.

Then she’s gone, and it’s our turn.

Hand in hand, Sarah and I stand right next to each other, facing the destroyed back wall of the train car. The last ones left, the last ones who still have to make the jump.

Sarah nervously twitches and moves closer to me, gently clinging to my arm, leaning her head against my shoulder. I smile and lean my own head against hers. After all this time, I still get excited every time the two of us are alone together.

We keep standing in this loose embrace for a while, while the airflow entering through the hole in the wall mercilessly blows icy breezes into our faces. The dark smoke that still rises from where that Mog threw the small red bomb encases the whole wagon like milky curtains, like waving fabric in the icy wind. Shadows dance around in the swath, faking movements where there are none and making me flinch every time.

The heavy layers of billowing fume seems to weigh the whole room down, it feels like every move takes more effort than usual. Breathing burns like hell; my lungs feel like they’re on fire from all the smoke I’ve taken in.

It stings in the eyes, too. Keeping them open for longer than two or three seconds without blinking is almost impossible. Not that it would be of much use, anyway. The grey foggy clouds around us are so thick, I can hardly even see further than to the next seat row a couple of feet away. The wind doesn’t keeps the clouds of smoke from getting out, so that they have been slowly filling up the whole wagon from the bottom to the top, turning it into a ghostly, menacing room full of dark corners.

I keep bumping into seat rows, because I can’t see a thing. The only way to be sure Sarah is still around is by feeling her soft skin on mine, by hearing her heart silently beat right next to my chest. And despite the severity and danger of the situation, I wish this moment would never pass.

Having Sarah so close to me – Sarah, the cutest, kindest and prettiest girl I’ve ever met – I could forget the whole around us. Just the two of us in empty spaces. Only Sarah and me, wrapped in blankets of grey mist. There’s nothing I want more than to just lose myself in her eyes for eternity. Lose myself for ever in this moment. A moment of peace. Of calmness. Of perfection.

A deafening noise behind us makes us both jump as the whole train car shakes. Sarah shoots me an alarmed glance. We both know what that means.

The Mogs in the next wagon are starting to get through the barricade of benches I’ve put up in front of the iron door to keep them from getting in here. It’s not going to hold much longer, the crunching creaks coming from the seat rows is getting louder and louder. Whatever the Mogadorian army on is hammering against the door, they’re going to break through sooner or later. We got no time to lose.

“I wish we could just stand like that for ever,” Sarah silently whispers, as if sensing my urge to leave. I give her a kiss on the cheek.

“Me too,” I  whisper back and pull away from our embrace. “But if we do, whatever breaks through that door will make that ‘for ever’ really short.” She crooks a grin.

At least I think she does. The smoke is so thick, I can’t exactly tell.

I turn towards the hole in the wall and take a deep breath. Through the clouds of smoke, it suddenly appears way smaller than I thought, as if it had shrinked while I hadn’t been looking.

I shake my head. The smoke is starting to cloud my own thoughts. I bite my lip, trying to focus on what’s important. On getting Sarah out of here alive.

“Ready?” I ask.

“No,” she hushes back. I smirk.

Neither am I. I have no idea what will happen when we jump through that hole. We don’t even know how far down we will fall. It could be just a few feet, or it could be much more.

I hope Eight and Marina didn’t get hurt when they jumped off. And that they have not run into more trouble afterwards. After all, those two other Mogs are still somewhere out there.

One more reason to get off this train immediately.

Another cracking noise from the iron door makes us start. Two more benches in the barricade break under the Mog’s hammering They’re almost through. We’re running out of time.

I grab Sarah’s hand and pull her a few steps backwards for some more runup.

“Here we go,” I whisper. I make sure that my grip around Sarah’s hand won’t loosen when we jump, then I take one final, deep breath.

“John,” Sarah says in a hoarse tone, but I ignore her. Whatever she’s about to say, it has to wait until we’re outside.

“Alright, on the count of three we run up to the hole and jump,” I say.

“John, this…” she begins again, but I shake my head. Not now.

“One,” I start counting, and tighten my grip around her hand even more. She groans in pain, but she’ll have to bear it, I need to know exactly where she is at all times.

“John, we…”

“Two,” I cut her off. Another one of the seat rows behind us shatters under the pressure.

“Three,” I say and want to start running, but Sarah doesn’t move. She even takes a step backwards, trying to pull me with her.

“Please, don’t,” she silently whimpers.

“Come on Sarah, we have to get out of here,” I shout at her. “Right now! Do you want to get caught by the Mogs?”

An especially strong gust blows a big cloud of smoke into my stinging eyes and I can’t see very clearly for a moment, but in these few seconds of vehement blinking, it seems like a sad, regretting look crosses Sarah’s face. As if she actually prefers this option over jumping off the train. Or was it just my imagination? Her nose’s shadow in the glimmering light, maybe?

“Of course I don’t,” she says, her voice different than before. Full of fear and shaking from indignation, but there’s something different to it. Something almost accusing.

“I don’t want to get caught by those monsters again. But I’m scared, John. If we jump, who knows how far down we will fall. You’re a Loric. You have superpowers, you can survive about anything, I’m sure you’ll be okay. But I’m just an ordinary human, John. We _die_ , when we hit our head too hard.”

“I’ll catch you before you hit the ground,” I say, trying to sound as confident as possible. But deep down I know she’s right. What if something were to happen to her? What if I do lose my grip around her?

“I’ll never let anything hurt you again,” I add, and she shoots me a wry glance. Then she looks down to her feet.

“I know… It’s just that…”

She falls silent, not finding the right words. Another hammering crack from the door.

She tugs a loose hair strand behind her ear, and as she does, she looks so innocent, so vulnerable, that I just don’t have the heart to force Sarah into jumping. Not when she is so scared of it.

And then suddenly something – I don’t know if it’s the desperate look on her face or her stooped, upset posture – something reminds me of the day we found her in the New Mexican U.S. military base, where the Mogs had kept Sarah for weeks. I sometimes still have nightmares about that moment I stormed into that cell. The sight of her, broken and defeated, rotting away in a dark corner, all alone, holding on to that one hope that we would come and save her, close to just giving up.

Seeing her like that, exhausted and hardly conscious, broke my heart that day. I can’t let this happen again. I must get her as far away from the Mogs as possible.

Sarah raises her head, as if sensing I have made my decision. I look deep into her eyes.

“Do you trust me?” I finally whisper after a few seconds of silence, pulling her closer to me.

“Yes,” she says without hesitating. I smile, grateful for her unconditional confidence in me.

“Then close your eyes,” I demand, nodding reassuringly.

She gives me a long, thoughtful look, than she does as I told her and closes her eyes, now fully relying on me to guide her.

Just like she did when she followed me into this whole mess. Which she should never have done.

I sigh and glance back to the iron door one last time. Of course, it’s no use, I can’t even see half the way through all this smoke. But from the cracking noise of the benches I can tell it’s not going to last longer than a few more seconds.

“Ready?” I ask her. She bites her lip, then lets out a long sigh and nods.

“Alright then, Sarah, follow me,” I order.

And we both start running.


	17. Chapter Sixteen

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

 

11

_Flickering light, then nothing. Nothing but nothingness. End of the tape._

_I get up from my spot in the center of the empty room and try the door._

_Still locked._

_I’m still trapped._

_I turn around just in time to see the nothingness drain away from the room as the flickering light reappears._

_My memories rewind, and even though I must have seen the images a thousand times in the past hour, I have to watch it all again._

_Screeching, Scratching, a small mute countdown announces the beginning of the next session, then there’s an image._

_Summer two years ago._

_Dad. Sunset. Warm wind on my cheeks._

_Fast forward. Skip the following one and a half years._

_Dad. Coffee can._

_Dad’s ash in his favourite coffee can._

_Seizure._

_Fast forward. Skip the few following weeks._

_Briefing room. Kelly. Me._

_Enter._

 

I don’t take my eyes off of Kelly’s back as I hesitatingly follow her into the briefing room. The icy feeling I get at the idea of meeting the General grows even colder, as if I swallowed an entire fridge.

Fear.

F-e-a-r. Four letters.

‘The only contact a true Mogadorian has with fear is if he spreads it, never by experiencing it himself. A true Mogadorian is not afraid of anything or anyone, on the contrary, fear is one of his biggest allies.’ Page thirty, paragraph two, third sentence of the great book.

Applying this to me, you’d think this section was a lie at first.

My whole life is one big cardboard castle of fear, threatening to collapse right on top of me at the slightest opportunity, burying me under countless layers of unsolved problems.

Once you look a little closer, though, you’ll realize that the phrase only states that ‘a _true_ Mogadorian’ is without fear. A true Mogadorian, that’s not me. Nope, not me. Definitely not me. Far from it.

Dad was a true Mogaodrian and Kelly is a true Mogadorian and every single other person I know is a true Mog, but I am not. No matter how hard I try, I will never be one.

Which proves the great book is absolutely correct once again.

When our great leader, Setrákus Ra, wrote the great book, he made no mistakes. And neither may I now.

Make no mistakes. Take no risks. Keep your secrets safe.

It’s hard to keep such things in mind when fear is constantly trying to push them out again.

After all, the cause of all my fears are my secrets.

Because, by definition, secrets have to stay secret to be secrets, that’s why they’re called secrets. The name explains itself. I like that. It’s simple. I like simple. Simple is easier for me to understand. Simple is easier for everyone to understand.

Simple. I like simple.

I don’t like secrets, though. No, not secrets. Secrets are bad. Secrets lead to fear, and fear leads to seizures. And seizures are weakness. Mustn’t  be weak. Make no mistakes. Take no risks. Keep your secrets safe.

My fear won’t just disappear, though, unless my secrets are lifted. In that case I have nothing left to fear, because somebody finding out who I really am will most likely get me killed.

My fear will live on, then, until the day my secret is unravelled. And so will I; I will live on, until the very same day.

In a twisted way, my fear is the only thing keeping me alive.

If, after my fear is gone, I got nothing left, then fear is everything I have right now. Which means I’ll have to hold on to it. Simple as that.

I like simple. It makes everything manageable, even for me.

I gasp as I look up from Kelly’s back for the first time in minutes and find myself in a dark, cramping place.

A bad presentiment stirs in my chest as I realize I’m already inside General Andrakkus Sutekh’s briefing room.

 

_Flickering light, then the tape stops._

_I don’t know whyt. It hasn’t reached the end, there still are about five more minutes to go. It never stopped in the middle before, never. Something must be different than the last times._

_Then: Words._

_Words in the distance._

_Then: A voice._

_A voice calling my name._

_I try to listen more closely, but the harder I try, the further away the voice seems to move, until it’s nothing but a distant echo, hardly audible._

_And then, as suddenly as it stopped, the tape turns back on again._

 

I am lost. I am doomed. I am never going to see the sunlight again in the eternal desolation of the briefing room.

The thought-suppressing horror of this place suddenly comes crashing down on me. There are no windows at all; the only light comes from a source I can’t quite see in the center of the room. It sends gloomy, yellow clouds of light billowing through the thick air.

Smoke rises from boiling cans with all kinds of poisonous liquids, stinging in the eyes. Knives, guns and various other instruments of torture carelessly lie around on the floor in big piles, and it’s so dark in here, I almost step on some of the sharp objects a couple of times.

But Kelly is always there for me, silently warning me just in time before I make a wrong step.

I like Kelly. Yes, Kelly. Without her I would be in a fix.

Slowly we cleave our way through the maze of strange objects, as Kelly leads me along the massive piles of the strangest things I have ever seen. Modern Mogadorian inventions, the newest weapons, extremely advanced technological devices, you name it. It’s all tossed aside on gigantic stacks, like toys thrown away by a kid with way too rich parents.

I stop for a second to examine one particularly shiny blade at the top of a pile. It sparkles oddly, even though there’s no light falling on it. I’m about to ask Kelly about it, but when I look up again, she is already several feet away, almost fading into the dark background.

A sudden screeching noise somewhere behind me sends a shiver down my spine. I stop dead in my tracks as I toss my head from side to side, trying to find out where it’s coming from. The gloomy light sends menacing shadows of all those cruel looking instruments dancing on the walls, faking movements all around me. There always seems to be a shadowy figure lurking around at the corner of my eye, observing me out of hungry eyes, preparing to strike once I don’t pay attention. But every time I turn to see if someone’s there, there’s nothing there but dark emptiness.

The cold shivers running down my spine have turned into icy chills by now, but I’m way too scared to shake them off. Scared that the room will swallow me if I make one wrong move.

When I’m not looking, all those weird instruments seem to reach out for me with their long, crooked fingers, trying to get hold of my ankles and to pull me backwards, away from the direction where Kelly is disappearing into the dark twilight of the briefing room. Dead insects that are pinned up along the walls seem to come alive and start crawling towards me. A crescendo of muted threats collapses onto me and still I’m not able to do anything.

I’m a fly, caught in a spider’s web, unable to move a single muscle without only getting deeper into the mess. And it won’t take long until the big, fat spider waiting for me in the center of the web notices what a delicious little fly just hit the hay.

The only thing that keeps me from being sucked into the dark vortexes of the briefing room right there is my fellow fly, my guardian angel, the spoiled princess of Ashwood, Kelly.

I can already feel the beginning of a seizure clutching at my guts when suddenly out of the darkness Kelly’s face appears.

“Come on,” she whispers, taking my hand and helping me up from the floor. Once again, I hadn’t even notice I wasn’t standing on my feet anymore.

“You know that you can’t show weakness,” Kelly adds and glances over her shoulder, in the direction the noise that scared me just a few seconds ago came from. “Not here. Not in front of my father.”

For a second we keep floating like that, her still holding my hand and me trying to stand without her help. Without her help. Without her help I would be nothing. I take a quick glance at her face, the only familiar spot in this entire room.

Then I nod, a silent promise not to show weakness again, which we both know I won’t be able to keep. Kelly gives me a disapproving look, then she shakes her head and turns back around. Not letting go of my hand this time, she leads me further into the menacing lands of the briefing room.

 

_Stop. The tape stops._

_No flickering light, not even the nothingness after the flickering light, it just stops._

_I don’t understand._

_The image of my memories is still there, it just doesn’t move anymore._

_As if  it’s frozen._

_As if  there are other things that I need to turn my attention to, rather than combing through my memories._

_I jump up from my spot in the center of the empty room and try the door._

_Still locked._

_I’m still trapped._

_And then: Words._

_Words in the distance._

_And then: A voice. The voice_

_The  voice calling my name_

_Only this time it’s different._

_This time I know whose voice it is._

_And this time, Kelly sounds far more desperate than before._


	18. Chapter Seventeen

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

 

10

 

“I don’t think they followed us,” I say as Five and I dash around the next corner.

Instead of answering, he suddenly tackles me sideways without warning. I let out a surprised squeal as we crash through a heavy iron door, not only lifting it out of its hinges but also completely obliterating the frame with the force of the impact.

We land alongside each other face first on the floor, but Five roles off and stands right back up. The fact that he just crushed a heavily armoured door with his bare shoulder doesn’t seem to have even hurt him in the least.

I don’t get up quite as fast as he did, but still in time to see an entire hail of bullets zip past the exact same spot we would be standing right now if Five hadn’t seen them coming.

“Or maybe they did follow us after all,” I manage to mumble before Five grabs me by the hand and yanks me forward again.

The blurry images of dark corridors and endless hallways rush past me as Five leads our escape through the secret underground US military facility. The sound of our own footsteps rapidly echoes off the wall, mixing with the shouts of the guards chasing us.

The soldiers don’t stand a chance, though, as Five brings up a pace humans could hardly even reach in their dreams. In fact, at times my feet don’t even touch the ground, but I rather get dragged through the air by Five, that’s how fast we’re going right now. If we were doing this on a public road, we’d get pulled over for speeding.

It doesn’t take long until we lose our pursuers, and even though more and more guards keep popping up, we always have a small lead over them. Each time they enter a corridor, we’ve already disappeared through the next door. Each time they follow us up a staircase, we’re already two floors higher.

And each time Five pulls me around another corner, I feel like my arm is being ripped out of its socket. I just hope we don’t need to go much further, because, as a matter of fact, I like my arm just the way it is. Still connected to my shoulder.

If it weren’t for Five, I’d probably be hopelessly lost by now. Every single hallway we briefly bolt through looks exactly like the last one. And I don’t even want to think about all the dead ends I’d get stuck in if I were alone in this god damn place.

But Five seems to know exactly where we have to go, which turns we have to take and what doors lead to what rooms.

Or at least I hope so. I hope he’s actually really as sure about what’s the right way out of here as he seems. Just one simple mistake is enough to get you completely lost down here.

“Don’t worry, Ellie, I know exactly where we’re going. Trust me, I studied the blueprints of this place all day long yesterday,” he says over his shoulder, as if reading my thoughts.

I shoot the back of his head a short, confused look. Was it just a coincidence? We keep going for about ten more seconds before I realize he actually can read my thoughts.

I almost laugh from my own stupidity. Mindreading. One of the most powerful abilities, if you ask me.

It was Five’s first developed legacy, quickly followed by his second one, superspeed.

Not just the usual Loric being-faster-than-everyone-and-everything-else-superspeed, I mean real superspeed.

If he has to, Five can move so fast, all you see are blurred lines of where his hand and fight might have been a few split-seconds ago.

Right now, though, he has to carry me around with him, which means he is limited to a relatively slow speed.

Well, slow for him. Still fast as hell for me.

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from you,” I yell back at him and he gives me a quick smile over his shoulder.

Gosh, am I happy he’s alive. I was seriously convinced I’d never see him again. Leaving him behind was one of the deepest regrets in my entire life. And I have made a lot of bad decisions I regret in my life.

Losing Five, though, was the worst of all. Having to live on with the thought that I’d never get to hear his voice again was even harder than the pain of Crayton’s death, even harder than losing Uncle Pit. It was unbearable. And the worst part is it was all my fault.

Him being alive against all odds is the biggest relief I’ve ever felt, though. I’m so excited right now, if I wouldn’t be so busy trying not to massively fall on my face while being dragged along with Five, I’d probably be bouncing up and down the walls out of happiness.

Five gives me another big smirk and then turns back forward. I keep staring at the back of his head, wondering how he could have possibly got out of that death trap I had been forced to leave him in. He looks just like the day I had last seen him, just before the Mogs had got to us. His short sandy-brown hair has just recently been cut – Five probably did it himself, as always. And despite him doing a horrible job at it every single time, he somehow manages to still look stunning just like that, even though there are some loose strings at random locations at the back of his head, where he didn’t quite reach every spot. His long aquiline nose still leads to the same halfway joking, halfway dead serious smirk. The only thing that changed about the face I missed for so long is the white bandage covering the entire area around his eyes like a blindfold. There are small, pink burn scars winding their way from that area to all over his face. I’m not sure what happened to his eyes there, but the scars seem to be at least half a year old, and Five is still bandaging it. I have to stop myself from picturing the horrible scenarios in which this injury must have happened.

There’s no use in doing that. It won’t heal Five’s injuries. It won’t revert the damage done.

And even though taking revenge won’t undo anything either, it’s Five’s way of solving his issues with the Mogs. If you know Five – and I know him quite well – then you can be sure that they will pay dearly for everything they’ve done.

Five will make them regret the day they ever decided to mess with the Loric. And there is nothing in the world that will stop him from doing what he has in mind. Nothing. Not the Mogadorian forces, not the US army and above all not a bandage over his eyes.

Not even me.

Looking at the white piece of fabric covering his eyes, though, I briefly wonder how he can run at this pace, let alone navigate through this maze of corridors without seeing a single thing.

Then I slap myself on the forehead with my free hand. How could I forget about his other legacies?

After learning to control his third one, telekinesis, it took a long time until he finally discovered his final legacy, second sight. Without having to see or hear things, he would always know what was going on around him, as if he had invisible sensors, sweeping the surrounding area.

Now to understand why this was such a big problem, one would have to look a closer look at Five’s personality. His most defining traits are the efficiency and determination in everything he does, always committing everything he’s got to reach his goals, not taking no for an answer. His ability to work out flawless plans and then executing them perfectly is what used to keep Crayton and me alive for so long in all this time we were travelling up and down the USA together.

His first three legacies matched his personality perfectly; they allowed him to act effectively and quickly, always one step ahead of our enemies. Second sight on the other hand, was a completely different thing.

It started out when we were in the middle of ambushing a group of Mogs that had been foolish enough to reveal themselves. They had believed that once we knew they were close, we’d panic and flee head over heels and they might catch us off guard in the process. But Five had decided to take them out instead, knowing that was the last thing they expected.

So there we were, in the middle of a fight we were about to easily win when suddenly Five collapsed right next to me for no apparent reason at all. His fourth legacy had kicked in at the worst possible moment, and the newly developed senses had been so overwhelming, it must have been hard not to lose his sanity back then.

We barely made it out that day, and for a long time Five wasn’t the same anymore.

He couldn’t keep the new legacy under control at all. Sometimes he’d get visions of  not only events that were taking place in the surrounding area, but also in places far, far away, way out of the usual second sight reach. Crayton used to say it was a gift, that once Five would learn to control it, he could use this extended range to his advantage.

But Five could never really grasp the concept of this second sight thing, and I always got the impression those random visions haunted him everywhere he went. Five never was one to complain, but deep inside I’m sure he cursed this last legacy. It seemed more than useless back then, it kept distracting him in important moments, which ultimately lead to the Mogs catching up to us the day we left him behind.

Well, as disruptive and frustrating as it might have been for him back then, with that bandage covering his eyes, it’s the only thing that is going to get us out of here right now.

I’m so lost in thoughts, it takes me a few moments to realize we’ve slowed down quite a bit. At this pace, I’m almost able to keep up with Five.

The shouts and footsteps of the guards behind us are gone, and we pass the last couple of corridors in silence until we get to a dead end.

I look at Five in irritation. “Did we take a wrong turn?”

“Ellie, please, have a little of faith,” he answers with a wink. “The military garage should be just through here.”

“Ah, we take the rear exit. What then?”

“We steal a vehicle and get the hell out of here,” he says and, noticing my sceptical look, he shrugs. “It’s the easy plans that never go wrong.”

Without further warning, he walks straight towards a door to the right, one that looks just like every other door we’ve passed on our way here. I really hope he knows what he’s doing.

Five turns to me and motions me to be silent, then he slowly opens the door and we quickly slip through it.

The room behind it is a gigantic hall, filled with all kinds of military vehicles. Tanks, sand-buggies and even airplanes – everything painted in camouflage. Even though there seem to be no guards in sight, I hear at least two people talking not far away.

Unlike the rest of the facility, this place is well illuminated in bright neon lights. In fact, it’s so bright in here compared to the dark corridors we’ve just been through, it takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness.

Five on the other hand doesn’t need his eyes to adjust, as he has that bandage over them anyway. When I can see normally again without having to blink every two seconds, he’s already moved down a row of huge F-16 jets and is ducking behind the loading area of a big pick up, right in the direction the voices come from.

Again, he motions me to be silent, then he waves me to come over to him. Without knowing who or what we’re hiding from, I get to my knees and slowly crawl towards him.

When I reach him, he gives me a big, bittersweet smirk, and points past the car we are hiding behind.

“Have a look,” he mouths without making a sound.

I glance around the back of the pick up and see a strange scene going down, just about twenty feet away from our hiding spot.

Two human soldiers stand face to face with a whole horde of fully armed Mogs. The alien’s leader seems to be in the middle of an argument with the two guards. I hold my breath to understand what they are saying.

“I’m telling you,” the human to the right is just saying. “She’s not here!”

An icy feeling runs down my spine as the Mog commander answers in a slimy, deep voice. “Our informant says otherwise.”

“Well, then your informant must be wrong,” the human snaps back. I’m surprised he’s not as intimidated as I would definitely be in his place. He either is really brave or, more likely, he has absolutely no idea in what danger he and his fellow guard are.

“This is your last chance. Hand over the girl or else we will take actions,” the Mog leader says, lowering his voice to a threatening whisper.

“Trouble in paradise,” Five mumbles next to me with an amused grin. And indeed, the government getting into trouble with the Mogs is a good thing for us. Our enemies fighting each other means we have some time to breathe.

But I just can’t help but feel sorry for those humans. They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into.

“For the last time,” the soldier says again. “We don’t have her. And what makes you think we would hand her over to _somebody_ like you, anyway, even if she was here?”

I hear the cocking of guns, that special, numbing sound of Mog guns being prepared to shoot. My hands start shaking from being torn between either aiding the two poor humans or letting them die. They are our enemies after all, and they let me rot in that dark, isolated cell down there.

On the other hand, they probably only have their orders, they might not even know who I am or why the Mogs want to get hold of me so desperately. Maybe they really didn’t even know I’m here at all. Who am I to just let them die. They could have a family at home, they could have kids, waiting for them to come home, they could be completely innocent.

“Then you are of no use to us anymore,” I hear the Mog leader say in a sepulchral voice, and I know I have to act.

I’m about to jump up and run out of our hiding spot, when suddenly I feel Five’s hand, tightening around my shoulder, pulling me back down. I shoot him a desperate look, trying to make him understand, trying to make him see that those humans are no different than us. They didn’t ask to become involved in this conflict, and they don’t have to die.

But Five just shakes his head with a cold, bitter expression. He doesn’t care about any of that. For him those humans are enemies, just like the Mogs closing in on them. For him, they’re just another obstacle on the path to revenge, just another chess piece the US government won’t be able to use anymore.

As much as I usually appreciate Five, it’s this dark, cold-hearted part of his soul that has question his entire . He’s bound to nothing, loyal to no one but himself, which makes him so unpredictable and dangerous. Everything he ever did for me, all those times he saved my life, it could all be just another strategic move in his crusade against the Mogs.

And what happens, when one day, I might be the one he needs to sacrifice for his cause? Would he do it?

The Five I know wouldn’t. The Five I know would never even let me get close to danger without making sure nothing will happen to me. But the Five I know wouldn’t let those two humans die, either.

This is not the Five I know. The only question that remains is how much is left of the old one.

Unable to do anything against his grip, I helplessly watch the Mog commander turn to his soldiers and give them a sign.

“Wait,” one of the guards shouts, but it’s too late already.

The deafening shots echo through the garage even long after the two motionless bodies hit the floor.

I gasp and almost let out the squeeking sound that builds up in my chest. The ignorant cruelty of those monsters keeps shocking me every time. They don’t even stop at killing their own allies.

Next to me, Five takes his hand off my shoulder and throws me a glance, which is kind of strange, considering he has no eyes to even throw me a glance. Still, I get the feeling as if it’s an apologizing gesture, like he’s trying to say sorry.

He shifts his weight from leg to leg as he silently takes an old leather glove out of the back pocket of his trousers. All lack of seriousness has now disappeared from his face, creating place for that deadly mask of confidence and determination he always puts on before a fight.

Meanwhile, one of the Mog soldiers hands the Mog leader a device that has some similarities to a telephone.

“They refused to cooperate. Immediately execute the assaults on all other targets,” the commander loudly speaks into it, then he nods to the other soldiers and they begin to leave.

Five realizes this is his chance, as they all have their backs turned to us now. In a split-second, he’s on his feet, stepping away from our hiding spot. His hand slips into his Loric glove, or the glove of doom, as I like to call it, as the harmless glove slowly transforms into a deadly weapon.

“Forgot something?” he shouts at the Mog squad, already rushing towards them.

The Mogs look up in confused alarm, but the moment they see Five and realize what’s going on, it’s already too late.

I don’t look as Five shreds through them like they were nothing but thin air. I just wait for the silent sound of ash, slowly dropping to the floor.


	19. Chapter Eighteen

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

9

 

After staring at the blue force field-wall-thing for a really long time, I realize the shadowy ghosts that float around on its surface really don’t move in a pattern at all.

Yay, what a triumph for science. Now that this is proven, there’s one less thing to do in this stinky place. Which means, there’s about nothing else to do. Nothing but waiting. Which basically is doing nothing. Doing nothing while waiting. Doing nothing while doing nothing.

Man, these thoughts can get you depressed.

So I just get back to staring at the force field-wall-thing.

 

I wake up with a jolt as an earsplitting alarm violently shakes me from a doze.

It’s a long, dragging, deafening sound, triggering some long forgotten memories deep inside of me.

Memories of the day of Lorien’s invasion. Memories of the intimidating sight of the Mogadorian ships landing on the planet’s surface, of their mechanical weaponry wiping out entire cities, of Pikens and Krauls and all the other nightmares the Mogs keep as their pets, ripping through our defence lines, of the chaos rioting through the dying population.

Memories of the darkest day in my people’s history.

I make sure Six isn’t looking my way, then I cover my ears to block out the incredible noise the alarm is making. Immediately, my head gets clearer and the haunting images of our last moments on Lorien vanish.

Much better.

I glance over at Six, who is still standing turned away from me, facing the blue force field with her arms folded behind her back. The alarm doesn’t seem to bother her at all, compared to me. Tilting her head to one side, she is absentmindedly watching the hazy shadows in the wall in front of her, lost in thoughts. Maybe she’s trying to find out if the ghosts’ movement is actually completely random or whether there is some sense behind it. Which, as I found out already, there isn’t.

I sigh. Ever since agent Walker left our cell an hour or two ago, Six has been in this very same position, not moving a bit. I keep wondering what she’s thinking about.

Not me, probably.

And I probably shouldn’t be thinking about her, either. I should be trying to find a way out of here.

It’s just hard to be locked up with someone and not to think about them, though, I keep telling myself. And how could I think of another thing? Six’ presence seems to fill up the entire room, because whatever I do, I always end up looking at her.

With another sigh I get back to doing what I’ve been doing all along, which is nothing. Sitting around, waiting for something – _anything_ – to happen. I wish someone else was here instead of Six, someone I could actually talk to without every single word getting stuck in my throat.

I wish was my Cêpan Sandor still here. Living with him was the best time of my life. All those hours we’d train together or watch movies or just talk, it’s all gone now. I never told him how much I liked him, not only as the father I never really had, but also as a friend. I wonder what he’d think of me right now, sitting here and doing nothing. He’d probably tell me to stop crying around like a whiny baby, to get off my ass and get the hell out of here, no matter what it’d cost.

Man, I miss him.

I sniff loudly and rip Six out of her meditative state of deep concentration.

She turns around to me, blinks a few times as if I had just awoken her from a deep slumber, then regains her usual, confident expression. Well, not exactly her usual expression, I still have the feeling something has changed about the way she looks at me, ever since I had this outburst of anger earlier.

I didn’t really mean to get mad at her, it was kind of unfair, considering the fact that the things I blamed her for are mostly my own fault. But at that moment it had just felt so good to finally get out all the rage that has been building up inside me ever since Sandor’s death. It was so liberating to throw the weight of the last years at someone else, even if Six didn’t actually deserve it.

What I had really caught me by surprise, though, was the way she reacted to my outburst of temper. You’d think someone as self-conscious as Six wouldn’t simply let me yell at her for no apparent reason without getting angry herself. You’d think someone like her wouldn’t just sit around, patiently enduring my rant like Six did. That’s something you’d never expect of her. I’m not saying she’s ignorant or so, but Six just isn’t the kind of person you’d talk about your emotions with.

I let out a big snort. Talking about my emotions! I’m beginning to sound like a small whiny wimp. Talking about emotions, that might be something our cute little Johnnyboy.

I clear my throat and then – in my deepest, manliest voice – I grunt “Not a wimp.”

“What?” Six asks and strolls over to me.

“Nothing,” I mumble as she comes closer. I instantly blush, hoping she didn’t hear that right now, but she doesn’t seem to care enough to dig deeper.

She sits down next to me and pulls her knees up to her chest. Keeping her gaze straight forward, she buries her chin between her crossed arms and stays unusually silent for a while. Well, as silent as it can be with this stupid alarm still annoying the hell out of me.

“What do you think that’s about?” Six says after a few seconds. Or at least I think that’s what she’s saying. At this noise level, I’m not quite sure.

“You mean the alarm?” I yell loud enough for her to understand.

She nods.

“Don’t know, probably just a fire drill or something like that,” I say with a shrug.

“You don’t think it might be the others?” she asks and I snort. I hadn’t actually really thought about what might have triggered the alarm. But whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t the other Garde.

“Are you serious? Little John and his gang coming to get us out of here? Seriously?” I laugh as if she just cracked a great joke.

Six looks at me, keeping a straight face. “Why not?”

“Please, Six, don’t make me laugh. I think we both know they can hardly even tie their own shoes without someone telling them how to do it. Do you actually believe they could do something to change our current scenery?” I nod at the force field surrounding us. “Sorry to break it to you, but they just don’t have what it takes. We may have no idea where we are right now, but neither do the others. Besides, I’d be really impressed if they don’t have their own problems with the Mogs. They’ve probably stupid enough to get taken prisoner themselves by now.”

“Funny, coming from the guy who spent an entire year in a Mog prison,” Six gives back and throws me a mocking glance.

I’m about to give her a fitting response when suddenly another noise besides the alarm becomes audible.

“You hear that?” Six asks and I nod. The newly arrived hissing sound grows louder and louder, until it drowns out every single noise inside our prison. It’s hard to say which one of the two is more disturbing, the uncomfortably pitched, siren like alarm or the new sharp, whizzing noise.

There is something strange about the second one, though, something oddly familiar.

“Wait, that sounds like… like…” Six stammers, but her voice dies out. Her lips keep moving up and down, but no sound comes out.

She doesn’t need to finish the sentence, though, I already know what she’s trying to say. I recognize the noise, too, now.

It’s the sound of a Mogadorian aircraft, firing those incredibly destructive missiles that they already used at the invasion of Lorien. The ones that tend to just reduce entire building complexes to tiny piles of ash.

“Oh, damn,” I manage to say before the deafening sound of an explosion signals one of the Mog missiles hit our prison. With a protesting roar, the earth underneath us trembles and a shockwave of heat and heavily pressured air throws me off my feet and the marble ceiling comes crashing down on us.

 

 

Celebrations. Fireworks. Happy laughter from all around me.

I’m back at the night my home planet got destroyed.

I’m laying in a cradle, with Sandor and my grandma leaning over me, big smiles on their faces and proud sparks in their eyes. I let out a loud yawn and both my Cêpan and my grandma laugh. Satisfied with myself, I close my eyes and fall asleep.

 

 

The next time I open my eyes, instead of Grandma and Sandor, there’s a giant hole gaping in the ceiling above me. I blink a few times, still sleepy from the little nap in my cradle, then I notice two things.

The first thing is an incredible pain in my temples, and a stream of warm liquid running down my nose.

The second thing is Six pulling me out of a pile of collapsed marble by the leg.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hiss in a sudden impulse of aggression and kick out so she lets go of me.

“Saving your life, idiot. Glad to see you’re alive,” Six mumbles while rubbing her wrist, where I just hit her.

“Saving my… life?” I ask, trying to process what she’s saying.

“Yeah, your life. You got hit in the head by a giant piece of marble, lost consciousness and stopped breathing. Had to dig you out and perform mouth-to-mouth respiration,” she says and tilts her head to one side.

“Mouth-to…What?” I murmur and then suddenly blush as I realize what this means. When Six sees my expression, she almost doubles over from a sudden laughing fit.

“Oh wow, you should see your face right now, it’s priceless! Oh, why don’t we have a camera?” she yells, hardly being able to breathe from laughter.

“Yeah, very funny,” I grumble, but deep inside my heart is pumping at double the usual speed from excitement. When my stomach rumbles, I’m not sure if it’s because of the butterflies in it or just because I haven’t eaten anything decent for days.

“Well… Umm… Thanks for… that… I guess,” I stammer.

Six stops laughing for a second and tries to maintain a serious face for long enough to give me an answer, but then just bursts out in another roaring laughter. My face turns even redder and I turn away, hiding from the shame of having to face Six.

Which only makes her laugh harder.

I wonder how she can be so carelessly happy, considering the fact that we are being attacked by our biggest enemies, being held captives by our second biggest enemies and I just almost freaking died. We should be devastated right now, desperate, hopeless [am Verzweifeln].

But Six is [ausgelassener] than ever, still unable to control her laughter.

Because finally – _finally_ – something is happening in this god forsaken place, even if it’s probably the worst-case outcome of this situation. At the moment, the relief of our time in this stinky cell getting to its end overwhelms every other feeling, even common sense. Six is just glad we’re finally getting out of here.

And to be honest, so am I.


	20. Chapter Nineteen

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

7

 

The rail tracks guide the way as I sprint through a heavenly landscape of beautiful, thriving hills and lush, green meadows.

Or at least the landscape would seem heavenly, if it weren’t for the heavy clouds of rain that block out about every single ray of sunlight. And as if that wasn’t enough to ruin the surrounding scenery already, a chaotic storm of gigantic raindrops keeps rampaging down from the sky, bathing this poor piece of landscape in a grey, cold atmosphere.

Not that it would matter, I don’t have time to stop and enjoy the view anyway. There’s no time for that. Every second I’d waste lowers my chances of finding Eight.

I shake my head in frustration. I need to stop pretending. The chances of finding Eight are close to zero already.

‘Follow the rails,’ John had said with a reassuring nod, just before I had jumped off the train. ‘Follow the rails and eventually you’ll find them.’

Right. Follow the rails. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past fifteen miles. With a pace no human could keep up for a minute, I’ve passed at least a thousand hills in the last half an hour or so. Up and down, up and down, and always following the rail tracks.

My legs hurt like hell and my lungs feel as if someone set them on fire. Not only did I take in way too much smoke from the explosion on the train, I’ve never run this far without resting in my entire life. Back at the abbey in Santa Teresa, there never was a reason to do anything like this. Nothing I’ve ever done before has prepared me for this.

As much as I’d like to keep the memory of my dead Cêpan free of all the anger and rejection I used to feel for her, I just can’t help but grit my teeth in silent rage when I think of how ignorant and selfish Adelina was by pretending she didn’t have to train me. The only reason she survived the Mogadorian invasion of Lorien is because she was my Cêpan. The entire Loric population died that day, just so she and the rest of us could escape. The least one could ask for in return for her life is that Adelina would fulfil the only task she was trusted with. And if she didn’t want to do her job out of gratitude or obligation towards the Loric, she could have at least done it for me.

I sometimes wonder if she actually cared for me at all. What was she thinking when she just decided not to train me? Did she really believe we would be safe for ever in that abbey? That the Mogs would never come looking for us?

Did she ever even love me? If yes, why would she refuse to help me, even when I was on my knees, begging her to train me?

I bite my lip and try to shake off the dark thoughts. The grey cover of clouds above me seems to not only darken the sky, but also my mood. I can’t afford to fall into this downward spiral of childhood issues now, not when Eight’s life could depend on me.

‘Follow the rails,’ I keep repeating John’s words in my mind, trying to keep my spirits up. If John believed I could make it as long as I stayed on this path, then I’m going to at least have to give it a shot.

The truth is, though, that me ever finding Eight out here is incredibly unlikely. My stomach seems to tense up at this thought, but I have to face the facts.

Eight is one of the most mobile of all Garde. With his teleporting, he could be a hundred miles away by now. And if he didn’t teleport, he can still outrun me with ease. He’s thoroughly fit, whereas what I’m doing can hardly even be classified as running. I bet he could just go twice as fast as me. Which means he’s way out of my reach right now.

And even if he didn’t run away, he could have just stepped a few hundred feet away from the rail tracks, and I’d have no chance of finding him. I might have even passed him already without noticing. How could John be so sure I’d find him?

“Follow the rails and eventually you’ll find them,” he had said. My heart skips a beat as I realize the difference to what I was assuming he had meant up to now.

 _Them_. Not _him_.

An icy presentiment creeps through my guts as I slowly begin to realize what John might have really tried to tell me.

I shortly hesitate, then I force myself onwards, despite my heavy mind. I don’t know how long I can continue like this, sooner or later I’ll need to stop and rest. Each breath I take is more painful than the last one and I can already feel my knees get floppy. Not much longer and they’ll just give in.

The heavy rain keeps getting heavier while I hold my head pressed back into the nape of my neck, trying to relax my muscles. I really should get some sleep sometime, or I’ll just collapse sooner or later. When was the last time we actually got the chance to rest?

I let out a surprised yelp as I trip over a stone I hadn’t noticed. I fall flat on my face and keep sliding forward on the wet ground for a few feet, dragging my head in the mud.

Sure, why not, a furious voice inside my head shouts. Why not make me trip me as well, as if just running wasn’t hard enough already.

I clench my fists in frustration, take a deep breath and try to get up. Immediately, a sharp pain shoots up my left leg and I drop back to the ground, right back into the mud. The angry voice in my head keeps cursing around while I rip my shoe off my foot and inspect. I must have twisted it when I fell. Well, at least it’s not broken.

With a painful groan I press a hand onto my hurt leg and begin to summon my healing legacy. An icy tickling sensation shoots through my hand and continues to flow into my ankle as the healing process begins. I hardly even notice my breathing speed up anymore.

I’ve done this so often by now, I don’t even have to watch what I’m doing, it just comes naturally.

While I slowly regain a numb feeling in my foot, I let my gaze wander over the surrounding hills.

Like a gigantic reptile sneaking up on the horizon, the rails wind through the landscapes. The hills themselves remind me of waves in a huge frozen sea of pale green and grey, seeming to rise and fall over and over again, and yet always staying in the same place.

Despite the rain, or maybe even just because of the rain, the view of this eternal up and down is really impressive. The vastness of these empty meadows makes me feel tiny and unimportant but yet strangely calm.

Two red dots in the distance catch my eye and I shield my face from the rain with my free hand to see more clearly.

It’s our train’s backlights, disappearing in the hills. Despite my legacy to see without light the grey curtain of rain almost entirely blocks the pillar of smoke still rising from the exploded back wall from my view. The train is so far away already, I can’t make out any details.

I scan the hills for a sign of Sarah and John, but there’s nothing there except for the train disappearing into the distance.

I really hope they got off the train in time before the Mogs got through to that last train car. when I had left them behind to go after Eight, Sarah had been shaking from fear of jumping off. And who could blame her? I was scared, too, and I got the Loric agility plus my healing legacies. John had looked kind of torn between forcing Sarah to make the jump and saving her from the Mogs.

All in all, I can relate to what Sarah is going through right now, though. She has been forced into a role she doesn’t want to play in a conflict she never should have found out about in the first place, all because she loved someone too much to see through them.

I went through a similar thing with Adelina. At the beginning of our time at Santa Teresa, I shouldn’t have trusted her to do what was best for us when she obviously had different things in mind. She had been tired of being a Loric, tired of being a stranger no matter where we went. She rather wanted to be sister Adelina, maybe not proud of her past but at least content with the present. I should have known back then what her attitude would lead to.

Just like Sarah should have known John was trouble for her. And now she’s stuck with him, too stubborn in love to let go.

I shake my head, shocked by my own meanness. Sarah already has enough problems of her own to deal with, judging her for a mistake I made myself just doesn’t seem fair.

I glance down at my foot, making sure it’s fully recovered, then I put my shoe back on and get up. After testing if my leg supports my full weight again, I pick up my old pace and continue the race along the tracks, my thoughts returning to that last scene before I jumped off the train.

From the moment I had first noticed the two Mogs sitting in the back of the car, I had known there was something strange about them. They didn’t attack us, they didn’t stop us from blocking off the rest of the Mog army, in fact, they didn’t even seem to care about us at all.

I never lost that creepy feeling about the two of them, though. I didn’t even dare turning my back to them, fearing they might jump at me while I wasn’t looking.

Eight didn’t seem to share my suspicion towards them, though. On the contrary, when we were trying to find a way to escape the Mog army, all he seemed to have eyes for was the Mog girl.

That very moment had seemed to last for ever, Eight and that Mog staring into each others eyes, me helplessly standing aside, not knowing what to do. I could almost see a tie bonding them together in this one look, like two soul mates meeting for the first time.

It was just… _wrong_. There is no other way to describe it.

Eight had seemed to be in a completely different world, caught in this stare that just didn’t want to end. I have heard of the Mogs’ mesmerizing powers, how they can awaken your darkest fears and turn them against you. How they make you want to crawl into a hole and hide for the rest of your life. How they can force even the strongest and bravest warriors to flee with just one simple look.

This situation seemed to be different, though. When Eight gazed at that Mog girl, he had been far from scared. His eyes had seemed to be empty, his mind far away, disconnected from everything around him, completely focused on that girl. His mouth slowly formed a smile, not a big one, just a hint. Eight didn’t look like he was about to crawl into a hole and hide at all, he seemed to actually be happy.

I still remember the cold, bitter feeling creeping down my spine, through my guts and straight up my throat again. Containing my anger was a really difficult task back then, I don’t know how I actually managed to do it. My mind almost exploded in a mix of disgust, sorrow and – most of all – jealousy.

You know how they say a look says more than a thousand words. Well, this one must have said at least a million.

Even after Eight had finally looked away, I caught him staring at the girl all the time.

I tried to tell myself that it was nothing, but there was something odd about the way he looked at the Mogs now, as if he had forgotten they actually were our enemies.

As the scene slowly got to its end and the Mog guy throws that bomb and rips that hole into the wall, I didn’t know what to think anymore. The sudden realization that the explosion hadn’t hit us but rather created a way to escape and the confusion about whether this was an accident or if those Mogs were actually trying to help us was just too much.

But I never got the chance to reconsider the whole thing back then.

The Mog girl had shot Eight another one of those looks, and I had thought I would just blow up from that deep, consuming rage about the way Eight reacted. Because when the two Mogs made their next unpredictable move and just jumped out of the hole they had just created, he hadn’t hesitated to just follow them, leaping through the hole right after them and leaving me in a shocked, desperate and torn state.

Too shocked to really do anything right away, I hesitated to go after him. I was scared of jumping off the train, I was scared of those two Mogs, especially the girl, and I was scared of going all by myself.

Not following Eight right away was mistake I regret deeply now, but at the time I was so distracted by the absurdity of the situation, I had no idea what to do.

If I hadn’t waited for so long back then, Eight wouldn’t have had such a huge head start now and I might have actually had a chance of finding him before the Mogs did something horrible to him.

But, as always, I messed up. And now the consequences could be deadly for Eight.

I’d like to punch myself in the face, cursing my inability to make quick decisions. If something were to happen to Eight, I just couldn’t live with myself, knowing I could have prevented it.

When I had finally decided to leave the train, the Mog army had already been about halfway through destroying the little barricade of train seats blocking them off.

Even though John had told me to go and find Eight, I feel bad for not staying there and helping him get Sarah out. If they didn’t make it in time, it’s my fault, and I just lost another two friends.

At least the fact that no fourth scar has burnt itself into my ankle means John’s still alive. Can’t be sure about Sarah, though.

But what am I thinking, of course they made it out – it’s John. John, the one and only number four. The one destined to die next in line, but who instead managed to survive everything the Mogadorians threw at him, not only keeping the rest of us safe up to the point we all got together, but also proving he wasn’t going to go down so easily. I don’t think there actually is a situation he couldn’t handle. He’s the kind of Garde that Lorien needs. Strong, smart, a natural born leader, the exact opposite of me.

No need to worry about them, if Sarah is still with him, they’re both fine.

What I need to worry about, though, are those two Mogs that are now freely moving around out here.

Even though Eight obviously trusted them enough to choose following them over staying with us, that only gives me more reasons to be cautious. It may be like Eight to senselessly throw himself into unnecessary danger, just like when he had teleported right next to Six who had turned out to be Setrákus Ra, which had almost cost all of us our lives, but it’s definitely not like me. For all we know, the two Mogs were just trying to gain our trust, luring us out of the train one by one to then finish us off when we’re separated.

They could be still roaming the area, preparing ambushes on each of us, trying to catch us off guard. They might even be right behind me at this very moment, just waiting for an opportunity to strike.

At this thought, my heart drops down to my boots and I throw a quick glance over my shoulder, almost expecting a Mog to jump at me.

But there’s nothing there, no Mog, no Eight, nothing but the not quite as heavenly landscape.

I sigh and let out a long, hoarse cough, holding my hips, where a burning stitch throbs painfully. I really can’t go on like this much longer, my lungs are killing me. The crushing feeling of being a useless failure seems to weigh me down even more, only adding to the overwhelming exhaustion. My feet feel like a car just ran over them several times, and all I want to do is just lie down and rest.

Of course, I could actually do that. I could simply end this torture right here and now, wait for John and Sarah, as they promised to follow the rail tracks as well. Sooner or later they’d catch up to me and we could figure something out together. John will surely know what to do, he always does.

For a second, I seriously consider this option. Just stop, calm down and wait. Wait for the others to take over, wait for the others to make my decisions, wait for the others to tell me what to do.

But what keeps me from simply giving up, though, what keeps driving me forward and makes me put one foot in front of the other over and over again, is the thought of what the two Mogs will do to Eight if I don’t find him soon.

Usually, Eight could easily deal with two simple Mogs all by himself. I’ve seen him fight and beat far worse than just this few Mogadorians.

But these are not just simple exempl, and this is anything but easy. I’m not even sure what I’ll be able to do when I find him – _if_ I find him. Compared to Eight’s powers, I’m rather useless. Especially when I’m in this condition.

But never mind how little harm I might do, I still have to try. Eight needs _me_ , not that creepy Mog girl.

But as time passes and I get to the point where I have to fight with my body for every step I take, my pool of hope and motivation slowly empties out. Every time I reach the top of another hill and all I see is nothing but more pale grey hills in front of me, I am more frustrated than before.

The rain still keeps getting heavier, and it looks like a thunderstorm is going to start soon. Vehement winds and the chaos of clouds arise, making moving forward even harder.

While I try to keep my desperation from getting to my head, I think of Six and her power to control storms just like this.

Six. We haven’t heard of her and Nine for an eternity. Since the moment we had to leave her behind in that park.

I miss her. Very much.

I clench my fists and force myself to focus.

What would Six do if she were in my place right now?

Keep going. She would keep going.

I sigh and run on. One more step. One more hill. One more minute.

Trying to save the small rest of energy I have left, I keep my head low, dragging myself onward, even closing my eyes for a while.

That’s how I only realize where I am when I almost run into a tree.

I stop dead in my tracks and almost faint from exhaustion and sudden fear. Rising panic threatens to cut off my air pipe as I look around and notice I’m already deep inside a forest. Except for that, I have no clue where I might have wandered off to.

There’s no sign of the rail tracks, either. Nothing but trees, rain, and the whistling wind.

And voices, coming closer.

Mog voices.


	21. The lion and the sheep

Note: During the process of reading this chapter, you might notice there are some parts you’ve already read before. I assure you, though, it is a whole new chapter, just keep on reading and hopefully all your questions will be settled ;)

**CHAPTER TWENTY: THE LION AND THE SHEEP**

11

 

_Flickering light, then nothing. Nothing but nothingness. End of the tape._

_I’m not paying attention anyway. I already know what will happen._

_Kelly’s voice in the distance has disappeared again, but I’m sure she’s in trouble right now._

_I keep hammering against the door, kicking it with all my might, trying to get it open._

_No luck, though._

_Still locked._

_I’m still trapped._

_No chance._

_I turn around just in time to see the nothingness drain away from the room as the flickering light reappears._

_My memories rewind, and even though I must have seen the images a thousand times in the past hour, I have to watch it all again._

 

_Screeching, Scratching, a small mute countdown announces the beginning of the next session, then there’s an image._

_Winter one year ago._

_Dad._ _Me._ _Building_ _a snowman in our backyard._

_Fast forward. Skip the following a half a year._

_Me._ _Alone. Sitting on the bed._

_Crying._

_Seizure._

_Fast forward. Skip the few following weeks._

_Briefing room. Kelly. Me._

_Enter._

 

I don’t take my eyes off Kelly’s back as I hesitatingly follow her into the briefing room. The icy feeling in my guts grows colder, as if I swallowed an entire fridge.

Fear.

F-e-a-r. Four letters.

‘Have no fear, Anivia, you’ll be fine.’ The first words Dad ever said to me.

I was three years, eight months, two days and eleven hours old back when I met him for the first time.

Dad had told me the story many times, but even without that, I would remember every single bit of it. I don’t simply forget such things. Not me. No. Not things like this.

It was a comfortably warm night and everyone was out, celebrating. The booming sounds of fireworks flew in through the open windows of my bedroom. I sat on my bed, watching the beautiful colours in the sky, feeling nothing but pure joy.

And then, within minutes, everything changed.

I watched as massive spaceships slowly replaced the sparkling fireworks in the sky, watched all those pretty colours turn into an inferno of red and white destruction, watched the peaceful celebrations suddenly get interrupted by a bitter but hopeless struggle for survival.

And then, out of nowhere, my bedroom door suddenly flew open and Dad stormed in, a thick iron helmet on his head and one Mog gun in each hand. He had some pretty nastily bleeding wounds at the left side of his face, but except for that he looked just like he did when I last saw him a few weeks ago.

He frantically tossed his head from side to side, looking for potential threats, then he spotted me.

Exactly that second the door flew open a second time and a woman entered. My mother, Dad had explained to me.

I had seen her around once or twice before already, but she had never stayed for long. She had short, platinum hair and bright grey eyes just like me, but that’s where the similarities ended.

Dad grunted grimly when he saw her. In a flowing motion he aimed both his rifles at her, his fingers already pulling the triggers. But before the bright white beams could hit her, the woman leapt sideways and dodged the shots.

Instead of falling back to the ground, though, she just kept on floating in the air, as if gravity had suddenly seized to exist for her.

Dad let out a snort and aimed again, when all of a sudden he was yanked backwards and went flying headfirst against the wall, making a loud cracking noise on impact.

My mother watched as he sank to the ground, a spark of infuriated rage glowing in her eyes. With a quick pulling motion of her hands, she tossed the two guns out of Dad’s hands, even though she was standing halfway across the room.

“Come on, Commander!” she spit out, waiting for Dad to compose himself. “Show me what you Mogadorians are made of!”

Dad groaned, struggled to his feet and actually managed to stand upright. Quite impressive, considering the blow on the head he just received. But Dad was a fighter, had always been one. He wouldn’t go down so easily.

With his guns way out of reach and the heavy injuries slowing him down, my mother seemed to have already won, though. There was not much he could do against a fully trained Garde’s legacies.

My mother seemed to realize this, too. With a triumphant look on her face, she started charging at him, still floating through the air. Dad got into a defensive fighting stance, preparing for her to hit him.

“We don’t have to do this,” he yelled out, but my mother didn’t even seem to listen.

A furious scream escaped her mouth as she got closer and closer, shooting through the air like a bullet. She was ready to rip him to pieces for what he had done to her people. To _our_ people.

But just a split-second before they collided, Dad played his ace in the hole.

In a quick movement, he got one of those ghostly glowing Mogadorian daggers out of a hidden side pocket of his uniform.

My mother realized what he was about to do just a moment too late. Too late. It was too late to react. Too late to slow down. Too late to do anything but rush towards her imminent death.

As she crashed into him, he slammed the blade into her body, right between two ribs. The impact ripped Dad from his feet and sent him flying backwards once again. This time he seemed to recover way quicker, though.

As Dad got back to his feet, my mother dropped to her knees, pulling the dagger out of the wound and staring at like she can’t believe it was actually there. Like she couldn’t believe how quickly this entire fight was turned around.

Then, with an aghast look on her face, she fell sideways, pressing one hand on her wound.

Dad walked over to her, picked up the dagger she had dropped to the floor and gave her a long stare. My mother had closed her eyes, just laying there, breathing heavily and waiting for the end.

Vulnerable. Defeated. Lost.

Dad squatted down, raising the blade over his head, ready to finish off what he had started, when suddenly something in his expression changed. There was something in his eyes, a look of pain mixed with regret and doubt. As if he was questioning what he was doing here. Why he was killing a woman he didn’t even know. Whether he actually hated those people enough to continue this senseless slaughter of millions of innocents.

The seconds passed, and from my observation post on my bed I could see Dad’s expression softening more and more. When he would later talk about this moment, he would always say it was a turning point in his life. Seeing the love of a mother trying to protect her clueless daughter from their overpowering enemies, doing everything she can just so that her kid might have a chance to survive a little longer.

Even if that meant my mother would die herself.

The silence was crushing. I hardly dared to breathe, not really understanding what was going on but still feeling the severity of the situation.

Time seemed to have stopped, none of us moving a single inch, until finally Dad lowered the dagger and stood back up.

My mother opened her eyes, realizing Dad was not going to stab her a second time. She looked up at him, confusion and anger in her expression.

“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this,” Dad silently mumbled, and I’m not sure if he meant the wound in my mother’s chest or the deadly chaos outside. He threw me a quick glance, then he turned to leave.

“Yeah, sorry my ass!” my mother shouted after him, just as he reached the door. He stopped and turned back while my mother continued.

“Don’t give me this hypocritical bullshit, Commander, if you really wouldn’t have wanted all this to happen, you would have ordered your battalion to fall back in the first place!”

Dad didn’t answer, he just stared at her, his face a mask of exhaustion and regret.

“You know, she is something special,” my mother coughed and motioned towards me. “She was going to grow up to be one of the strongest Garde in Loric history. A beautiful, brave, proud and kind young lady. She has her whole life in front of her. Who the hell are you that you think you can just walk in here and take that away from her?”

“I spared her life,” Dad replied, but my mother just snorted.

“And you think your friends out there will do the same? It won’t take long until your reinforcements arrive, and they sure as hell won’t hesitate to kill her. When you decided to lead your troops into battle, you signed her death sentence. You didn’t spare my daughters life right there, you just delayed the execution.”

Dad had silently stared at her for another few seconds, as if fighting with himself over what to do next, then, without another word, he had turned to leave once again.

“Wait!” my mother had called after him one more time, but Dad had just kept on walking.

“Commander, you are not a bad person, I believe in that! You want to help, not destroy. There still is a way to redeem yourself. Take my daughter with you! Take Anivia and keep her safe! You hear me, Commander? Commander!” she cried out, but there was no response from Dad.

A moment of silence passed, and it almost looked like he was going to just leave us behind like that. My mother lying on the floor, blood streaming out of the wound in her chest and creating a pool of blood around her. She knew she wouldn’t survive this day, and with tears rushing at her face, she slowly seemed to realize that neither would I.

Then there were footsteps out in the hallway, and Dad rushed back into my bedroom again, a huge military backpack in his hand.

“They’re coming,” was the only thing he said to my mother while storming past her and to my bed. Turning the backpack upside down, he let its entire content drop to the floor until it was completely empty.

“Have no fear, Anivia, you’ll be fine,” he said, addressing me for the first time since he got here.

“We’ll both be fine as long as we work together,” he added, throwing a hectic glance over his shoulder, as if to make sure no one else had appeared in the doorframe. “Now, I need you to hop in here and stay absolutely silent until I tell you to come out, can you do that for me?”

He motioned towards the backpack and then looked at me with a friendly smile. I looked back at him with big eyes, not knowing what to do. I had always been told not to trust strangers, especially not ones that would wander around with one gun in each hand.

“It’s fine, honey. He won’t hurt you. Right?” My mother said with a side glance at Dad, who shook his head reassuringly.

“No, I will never hurt you,” he repeated. “I’ll keep you safe and raise you as my own, provided that we get out of here alive.”

“I trust you will,” my mother said as I got up and hesitatingly crawled into the empty backpack. The second I was inside, a big explosion nearby shook the entire building and sudden, loud calls came from outside. Dad quickly closed the top of the bag over my head.

“Leave!” I heard my mother yell hoarsely at Dad. “Leave, it’s your only chance.”

Dad didn’t answer, but the fact that the backpack suddenly started shaking up and down vehemently told me that we were on the move. I never got a final look at my mother, but as I got tossed up and down in the bag, I heard her voice calling after us.

“Thank you, Commander. No matter what you may have done today, deep down you are a good man after all.”

The shaking of the backpack stopped for a second as Dad stood still, and I know how much this must have meant to him. Dad always told me that he had wanted to go back and take my mother with us, too. But then we would have never made it.

Dad sighed, then the tossing continued as he and I left home for ever.

The last thing I remember about that day is Dad pulling me out of the bag after hours of getting flinged from side to side. He had sat me down on a bed in his room on one of the Mogadorian spaceships, then he had collapsed on the floor next to me and immediately fallen asleep. And after a while of listening to his consistent deep breaths, I finally fell asleep, too.

When I was younger, I didn’t quite understand all those weird memories. Dad never kept secrets from me, but there were certain things he only explained when I grew older. For example why he had kept my very existence a secret until I was six years old, orwhy I just didn’t seem to fit in with the other Mogs at school no matter what, or why I was never allowed to leave the Ashwood Estates.

All of it was part of not risking to compromise my real identity, he would later tell me.

Take no risks. Make no mistakes. Keep your secrets safe.

It’s hard to keep such things in mind when fear is constantly trying to push them out again. The vary same fear that follows me everywhere I go, the same fear that makes me tremble in every move I make, the same fear that causes all those frustrating seizures.

Constant fear of making mistakes.

This very same fear won’t simply disappear just like that, not unless my secrets are lifted. Not unless someone realizes there’s more to my story than what Dad had always made everyone believe.

In case someone does find out who I really am, I will have nothing left to fear, because my secret being revealed will most likely get me killed.

My fear will live on, then, until the day my secret is unravelled. And so will I; I will live on, until the very same day.

One part of my mind seems to hope that this fateful day will never come, that things won’t change anymore. Change forced me into this situation. Change killed Dad. And if I don’t watch out, change will get me killed, too.

Another part of me just wishes everything was over already. Wants to get rid of that eternal fear. Wants to be free of the constant sorrow. Wants everyone to finally find out.

Because sooner or later, somebody is going to find out. Somebody is going to find out who I really am.

 _What_ I really am.

Why not make it sooner?

In between two steps, one of my hands reaches down to my right ankle as if on its own accord, playing with dangerous thoughts of revealing what lies well hidden under my trousers and socks.

Before that hand can do anything, though, my other hand grabs the first one and holds it in place. The first one tries to escape the grasp and starts fidgeting vehemently, managing to shake off the other one. They keep struggling for a while in a constant forth and back, none of them really being able to gain the upper hand.

Meanwhile I feel like a silent spectator inside my own mind, watching the two sides of the myself fight an endless war against each other.

It’s obvious neither one is going to win, not if it goes on this way. And if it goes on this way, neither one is going to win.

I shake my head and force my arms back under my control. There will be time to deal with that later. Enough time. Endless time.

It’s not like my problems will ever run away from me. It’s the other way around. They’re chasing me.

 

_And this is what happens when they catch up to me._

_Seizures._

_My brain snaps. Stops working properly._

_The small sane rest of me retreats. Escapes from the surface of my mind. Hides deep inside my head._

_Hides in a safe spot._

_It can wait here. Wait until the rest of me has calmed down._

_I have many of those safe spots in my mind. This one here is by far not my favourite.._

_Human doctors call it a ‘memory chamber’. I call it Frank, because I like the name._

_Frank always lets me see the most recent memories before a seizure. Which usually are not the happiest moments. I don’t like Frank much. No._

_What makes like him even less  is the fact that he doesn’t let me get out of the safe spot when I want, but rather when he wants. Which can sometimes take hours._

_I have to play it nice with Frank, until he finally opens that door and lets me out._

_So I sit down on my spot in the middle of the room and continue to watch the last  memories before my most recent seizure._

 

I am lost. I am doomed. I am never going to see the sunlight again in the eternal desolation of the briefing room.

When we left the safety of the corridor outside behind us, we entered a different world. We’ve passed over into a place beyond all happiness. A place beyond all hope.

Walking past this doorframe was like stepping through a portal into another dimension. Different than anywhere I ever was before. Different than anything I’ve ever seen before.

And I don’t mean the interesting, inviting kind of different. Nope. Not that kind of different. No.

More of a scary, evil kind of different. Yep, that’s it, scary, evil and cruel.

Dark and deadly.

Sullen and sinister.

Scary, evil and cruel.

A kind of different that makes your heart pump faster from the horrors that await me in this place.

The gloomy yellow light is hardly bright enough to see where I am going. I completely rely on Kelly to lead me, and even with her by my side, I feel hopelessly lost in this endless twilight.

The air around me is sticky and absolutely windless. It doesn’t take long and I crave for fresh air to fill my lungs. I wish I could be outside right now, back up at the surface, not deep down here, not in the underground section of the Ashwood Estates. No. Not down here. I don’t like being this far below the surface.

I’m always above the ground. In school or at home, always above ground. Never down here. No. Don’t have permission to be here, anyway. Not allowed in the underground parts. Only on special occasions. No one is allowed here, except if he works in these parts or has some special business to do.

My thoughts return to the human that stormed out of the briefing room just before we entered. Agent Purdy, the General had called after him. The General had sounded really upset back then. I wonder what the little human could have said that made the General so angry.

Or is the General just always angry?

I tug my hands into my sleeves in a protective gesture, but that doesn’t stop the sudden cold shivers flowing down my back either.

We move further through the room, and I get the feeling I’m walking towards the end. How long can I keep resisting all this pressure before my mind snaps and I have a seizure? And what happens if I do get one in front of the General?

My stomach makes a growling sound at these thoughts. Better not take the chance.

As we dig deeper into the bottomless abyss of the briefing room, I begin to feel the pulsating presence of the room, hovering above me like some sort of menacing predator. It makes me feel like the room has a mind of its own, trying to misguide me, to get me away from the right path. Like it’s snatching at me with sharp teeth made of piles of weapons and strange devices. Like it’s breathing along to the shadows dancing on the walls. Like it’s an actual living being, luring me into my demise.

I’m a fly, caught in a spider’s web, unable to move a single muscle without only getting deeper into the mess.

And as we walk around the last pile of dangerous objects, I come to face the hungry spider.

In the middle of his web, General Andrakkus Sutekh is standing behind a wooden desk, leaning onto his fists. The letters ‘MP’ are imprinted on his big, black uniform, right next to a little golden badge, showing his high military rank.

I’m so nervous that when I salute, I do it so quickly, there’s a loud smacking sound when my hand touches my forehead. The General doesn’t even look up, he just keeps staring at a pile of papers on his desk.

His sharp, angled face is being illuminated from below, which only adds to his intimidating, superior appearance. But even in the dim yellow light, I can tell there’s way more red in it than I remember from the pictures I’ve seen of him.

Red, what does that mean again? Dad once explained to me that the colour of people’s faces sometimes change with their current mood.

White means they’re scared, green means they’re sick and blue means they’re running out of air and are about to die.

And red, red means they’re really angry. Whatever this agent Purdy said to the General, I was right about it really upsetting him, because he is still breathing heavily, not having calmed down a bit.

Kelly motions me to wait and not to make a sound as the General keeps ignoring us. Taking long deep breaths, he seems to try to compose himself. In a strange way, he reminds me of myself, trying to calm down after a seizure.

Take deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. An eternal cycle of perfect equilibrium.

The difference between us, though, is that instead of making progress and actually calm down he seems to only get angrier the more time passes, until he only snorts furiously until in the end. With a bloodcurdling howling he throws the entire stack of paper off the desk in anger and frustration.

His massive rib cage rises and sinks rapidly for another few moments. From all the Mogadorians I have ever seen, General Andrakkus Sutekh definitely is the biggest, scariest and most dangerous one. Every single inch of his body seems to be covered in huge muscles., making him appear like an indefinable pile of raw power and force.

Not someone I want to mess with. After all, there’s a reason they call him the pride of the army. The lion of Mogador. Our great leader Setrákus Ra’s right hand.

When he finally looks up from his desk, his eyes are so full of rage, I want to sneak right back out of here and hide under my bed.

Had I not made that promise to Kelly, I’d be out of here already. Far away. Back at the surface. Not here, though, no. Anywhere but here.

Unfortunately, I have sworn to try my best at helping her out in this audition with the General, so there’s nothing left to do but stand next to Kelly and wait for her father to greet us.

The older greets first, an old Mogadorian tradition. As old as the great book itself. Which actually isn’t very old.

“What is it you want to waste my time today, Kelly?” the General says after half an eternity of shooting us deadly looks. “Did one of your Pikens get sick again? You know I don’t have time for this.”

Kelly ignores the comment about the Pikens – it’s a long story, one that still embarrasses her. Instead, she motions towards me.

“General, Sir, this is Anivia Magritek,” she introduces me and I try not to faint as the General turns his attention towards me. His rigorous eyes size me up and I focus all my attention on resisting the urge to run out of the room.

“Ah, yes, Marcio’s daughter. You can be proud of your father, he served our cause exceptionally well. There’s no greater honour than to dying in combat,” he finally says in his deep, intimidating voice. I almost tremble at its sound, even though bringing up Dad seems to have calmed him down a little bit. He and Dad used to be really close when they were young.

“I wish there were more Mogadorians like him left,” he adds with a bitter undertone, and I’m not sure if I just imagine the quick glance at his daughter.

“He was a good man,” he then continues, making a pause to give me the opportunity to say something, but my throat suddenly feels too dry to even think about making any sound at all. My mind is way too occupied with trying not to panic to come up with an answer, anyway.

Kelly comes to my aid, though.

“Yes, a great man, indeed, Sir. Just think about all the times he saved us from hopeless situations, all the victories our military owes him…”

“Cut the crap, Kelly,” the General harshly interrupts her. I know it makes no sense, but I get the impression that every time Kelly says something, he seems to only get angrier.

“What do you want?” he barks at Kelly.

I flinch at his short tempered tone. Whatever that conversation he had with the fleeing human was about, it left him with an even worse mood than usual.

But I somehow can’t ignore the feeling that this is not the only thing causing his anger. The way he glares at Kelly… I may not be good with emotions, but even I can see that the General obviously can’t stand his own daughter. It’s as clear as it can get. Crystal clear.

Clearer than that. Air clear.

When I had decided to come along with Kelly to talk to her father, she had warned me that he might not exactly be friendly. That’s okay, I didn’t really mind, that’s the way everyone treats me around here.

What she didn’t mention is that he would treat us like his personal worst enemies. I didn’t expect this reluctant aversion, this _hatred_ towards his own daughter. Obviously, he and Kelly don’t have such a great father-daughter relationship as they publicly pretend.

Kelly sighs.

“Alright, Father, Sir, I’ll get to the point. Nivi and I have something to ask you. A request. We want to join the task force to track down the remaining Loric.”

A look of surprise crosses General Andrakkus Sutekh’s firm face, but he wipes it away immediately. Instead, he puts on an amused, malicious smirk and comes forward from behind his working desk.

 “Why, what’s wrong with the Piken-training, Kelly? Why the sudden change of heart? You told me you were happy with the Pikens. I thought you found your future down there. Oh, and what a future!

You’re not like the other girls around here, I get that. You want more than to just sit around all day, waiting for your husband to come home from duty. You want action. You want adventure. That’s why you’re down there, with the Pikens,” he says and gives Kelly a cold, triumphant smile. Treating the Pikens is considered one of the most dishonorable jobs in the entire Mogadorian system. But Kelly admitted to me she actually likes her job, and she also is the head of the whole Piken-breeding department, which technically puts her amongst the highest military ranks arpund here.

Nonetheless, she’s still looking for something else. Something more interesting, she had told me. Something outside the Ashwood Estates.

And the General seems to know that, too. Kelly and him talked about it over dinner a couple of times. But instead of granting his daughter her wish, he seems to enjoy denying it to her. She had hoped that he would maybe reconsider the whole thing if I would come along. Because he and Dad used to friends, Kelly had said.

Guess she should have known better.

“After all the effort I put into getting you to where you are now, you want to just give the Pikens up like that? What will they do without you?” He says with in mocking tone.

Kelly purses her lips, knowing better than to take his bait, though.

“I’m sure you’ll find a fitting replacement” she replies. “And I’m really grateful for all you’ve done to get me this position. It’s just that… umm…” She shoots me a quick glance. “Nivi here found something in a… news report that could lead us to one of the Loric.”

I gasp. What is she doing?

“And now we want to help tracking them down,” Kelly finishes.

I press my knees together to stop them from shaking. Lying was never part of our agreement. Not part of the plan. Because lying to a Mogadorian of such high importance General is a really serious crime. And the punishment for such crimes is… deadly.

The General turns his attention to me, suddenly interested.

“Is that true?” he says and I feel like I’m shrinking to half my size at his gaze.

My pulse rises to double its speed and I take a couple of quick breaths before I realize I’m going to have a seizure if this continues. Which mustn’t happen. Not in front of the General. No. Not now.

Have to calm down… Calm down…

Another exercise Dad taught me: Colours.

Blue, green, yellow, orange, grey, purple.

Blue like the ocean.

Green like the meadows.

Yellow like the sun.

Orange like… an orange.

No, that doesn’t count.

Orange like that football Dad and I used to play with on his free days when I was younger. Orange like that stupid hat I once made Dad wear for carnival.

And grey… grey like the ash Dad evaporated into a few weeks back.

Purple like the cold, indifferent Mogadorian eyes of so many soldiers that watched him die, without even trying to help. He might have been an excellent warrior, but all in all he was just another brick in the wall, just another face in the gigantic army of Mogadore, dispensable like any other soldier.

I look up and realize the General is still expecting an answer.

Not knowing what else to say, I fall back to the only thing that never failed me.

“The Mogadorian is a natural born predator. Once he has picked up his prey’s scent, he won’t rest until it is hunted down. The great book, page fourteen, paragraph two, first and second sentence,” I shyly stutter, staring down at my feet. The General gives me a long look, and I get the feeling he’s looking right into my soul, reading my darkest secrets, as if I’m transparent as glass.

Glass. As transparent and fragile as glass.

“Well, I’d love to hear whatever it is you found in that news report,” the General finally says. “But I’m afraid we already tracked the remaining Loric down.”

“What?” Kelly cries out before she remembers who she’s talking to.

“I mean, you did, Sir?” she adds, in a more polite tone.

“Yes, Kelly, we did. Our soldiers trapped them in a train near the Canadian border. We sent an entire battalion, just to make sure. There’s no way they’ll get away this time,” he says with a triumphant, self-pleased smile.

“That’s…great. Fantastic!” Kelly says in an unconvincing way. The General raises an eyebrow at her lack of enthusiasm, but before he can ask her about it, there’s a loud noise from outside.

“You can’t enter now, the General is busy at the moment,” I hear one of the four vat-born guards say. “Do you even have an appointment?”

“No, but I have an important message for the General. Now let me in, the General needs to hear this,” another deep voice replies while panting loudly.

“We have strict rules…” The guard begins, but the other voice cuts him off.

“Screw the rules! I need to get this to the General. Right now!”

There’s a moment of silence, in which the guards seem to decide to let whoever is waiting outside in, because a couple of seconds later, the door opens and a big Mog scout rushes through the maze of all those strange objects, coming straight towards us. His face is red from anxiety and he’s breathing heavily. The sweat on his forehead means he must have ran for quite some time to get here.

I wonder where he may have come from.

“Sir, General,” the scout says as he reaches us and makes a quick bow. “I bring you news from Canada.”

“Ah yes, the trapped Loric. We were just talking about them,” the General says, a cruel smirk on his lips. He looks at the scout, motioning him to continue.

“Sir, General, the Loric that we trapped…” he begins, but then hesitates.

“What about them?” the General impatiently demands.

“…They seem to have escaped,” the scout finishes.

I watch as the General’s triumphant grin slowly turns into an infuriated grimace.

“WHAT?” he franticly roars and takes a menacing step towards the scout who nervously moves backwards.

“Th-they must have somehow slipped through our trap. I…I don’t know the d-details, Sir, I’m j-just the messenger. I wasn’t even there,” the scout hoarsely mumbles.

“Father,” Kelly says, taking an uncertain step towards them, but the General doesn’t even seem to notice her.

“HOW COULD THEY HAVE ESCAPED?” the General yells and moves even closer. The scout keeps stumbling backwards until he gets to the wall, silently whimpering as the General reaches him.

“Father, Sir, I…” Kelly begins again, but just a small gesture from her father is enough to reduce her to silence. With a furious expression, he turns his attention back to the scout.

“Please, Sir, there was nothing I could have done…” the Mog says, all colour draining from his face.

White. If a persons face turns white, that means they’re scared.

I guess I could have figured that out myself, without Dad’s lessons, though.

The General stops a few feet away from the scout, watching him with nothing but disgust.

With one of his massive, bulky hands, the General grabs the Mog by the throat and effortlessly lifts him up three feet in the air.

“YOU HAD THEM! HOW COULD YOU LET THEM ESCAPE?” he roars and starts shaking the poor guy. The scout frantically gasps for air, being tossed from side to side, but the General’s grasp is too tight.

“Sir, please…” he manages, his face turning into a dark shade of blue from the lack of oxygen.

Then, with a loud snap, the General breaks the scout’s neck and the poor Mog turns into ash, that slowly trickles down from the General’s hands.

At the sight of this, I suddenly feel my breakfast working its way up my throat, attempting to get back out the way it got in. I need to bring up all my willpower to not puke on the floor right there.

Kelly clears her throat and takes a step sideways. Even though she tries to act as if she didn’t care about the scout’s death at all, I got to know her well enough in the past weeks to know it actually did shock her.

Making sure her father’s back is still turned to us, she slowly reaches down to a pile of weapons to her feet. My eyes widen as she picks up a long, golden dagger and weighs it in her hand.

The General turns back to us, his face a grimace of uncontrollable rage and devouring contempt. Kelly quickly hides the dagger behind her back and looks at her father with sheepish eyes. My heart almost stops when I imagine what she’s planning to do with the blade.

“You're still here?” the General roars at us, and I almost crumble at the sound of his voice.

“You still haven’t given us an answer. You could obviously need some help with those sneaky Loric,” Kelly replies in a calm tone. The General lets out a rumbling laugh.

“And what makes you think we needs wimps like you in the task force?” he asks and I flinch.

“If you ask me, there’s a ton of reasons. You still haven’t caught the Loric in all the years we’re on this planet, maybe it’s time to freshen up the hunt with a couple of new members,” Kelly says, tilting her chin forward in a challenging gesture.

The General gives her a long, cndescending stare, then he shakes his head.

“No. Not in a thousand years, Kelly. You’re going too far this time. Know your damn place, girl!” he curses.

“Is this your final answer?” Kelly asks, looking her father deep in the eyes without turning a hair. Her whole body is tensed in anticipation, and even though she must be at least a bit upset by what her father did to that scout, she stands completely still, not moving a muscle, like a statue, completely indifferent to her surroundings.

The General grimaces.

“Can’t you hear, Kelly? I said no, and I mean it. Now go back to the Piken-training, I’m sure they’re already missing people like _you_ down there,” he hisses hatefully and shoots her a look that could kill.

Kelly shakes her head and does something unexpected: She smiles.

“I thought so,” she says in a bittersweet, disturbingly calm voice.

I press my lips together and stay silent to what’s about to happen next.

And what else can I do? Should I try stopping Kelly from using that dagger? Should I stop her from killing her own father? From killing the man that has the deaths of countless innocents resting on his conscious? The man that had command of the army during the genocide on Lorien?

It would be treason not to step in, not to save a Mog of such a high rank. But doing it somehow doesn’t seem to make any sense at all in my brain. Without letting me know, my mind seems to have already decided that I won’t do anything to help the General.

Still, not acting now goes against everything I’ve ever been taught in Mog-school, everything I’ve ever read in the great book of our people. It’s like I’m divided into two pieces, the instinctive, emotional side pleading not to intervene while Kelly does what she’s about to do; the other part of me, the reasoning, disciplined one, orders me to react and to stop her from killing one of Mogadore’s biggest heroes. My sentimental side versus my logical side. The sympathetic part versus the cold-hearted part.

Nature versus progress.

I bite my lip. Whatever happens now, I’ll regret it. That’s for sure. Either way, the decision is mine. I have more than enough time to stop Kelly from throwing the dagger. I can choose the outcome of the situation. Fate is in my hands for the very first time in my life.

And as the inner conflict threatens to rip me in two, I suddenly see Dad’s face in front of me.

It’s like a vision, like a dream, I know he’s not really here – he can’t be, he’s dead – but just the sight of him, staring at me with those generous, intelligent eyes, is enough. He doesn’t say a word, he just watches me as I turn my attention back to Kelly and the General.

I know what Dad would want me to do. And I make my decision.

“You were a horrible father,” Kelly says and brings the dagger forward from behind her back. The General raises an eyebrow. He seems confused, not really understanding what’s going on. He’s probably never been talked back to by his daughter.

Guess he’ll never get the chance to get used to it, anyway, because Kelly reaches out and throws the dagger with all her strength.

When with a sudden spark in his eyes, the General finally seems to realize what she’s done, it’s already too late. The knife flies in a straight line towards him, and there’s no way he can dodge or deflect it in time. I watch his edged expression, as within a matter of a second it turns from the usual arrogant, overconfident glare into a grimace of surprise, confusion and – who would have thought – fear.

The blade hits his chest, penetrates his suit and stabs him right in the heart. BLERG I just stand there, watching him fall to his knees. The instinctive side of me has won. This time.

The General gives his daughter a final glance, his lips moving in disbelief without making a sound. It reminds me of how I must have looked when I had the seizure just earlier today: weak.

Kelly holds his stare without blinking all this time. Her expression is stiff and motionless, but I know she’s enjoying the show. Ever since the day she was born, he never gave her anything but the cold shoulder. No fatherly love, not even the slightest sign of any emotions other than uncontrollable anger and manipulative rancour. Deep down, he must have hated her almost as much as her traitor brother.

The General coughs in agony, spitting blood then he manages to get out one final word.

“Why?” He asks with a last ounce of strength.

“Killing is in our nature, and therefore, death is nature’s way of showing our superiority,” Kelly quotes the great book and I automatically add ‘page one, paragraph three, second sentence’ in my mind.

“You taught me well, Father. You forged my hatred, but you didn’t notice I directed it at you. You made me a soldier, but you didn’t care that the you had always been the one I fought. You gave me a weapon but didn’t know that in the end, it would be the same one that strikes you down. And now, _General_ ,” she spits out the last words. “Now you die.”

As she finishes the final sentence, her father yanks his head upwards and lets out an unsettling, hysterical, almost mad laugh.

I press both hands against my ears to shut it out, but it just keeps on echoing in my head. An unexplainable feeling runs through me, happy and sad, chaotically raging and peacefully calm, sane and insane at the same time.

The beginning of a seizure.

The General manages to stay upright on his knees while throwing his daughter one last hateful glance, then he doubles over and turns into ash, just like any other Mogadorian would.

Just like my own Dad did.

And this is the story of how General Andrakkus Sutekh, one of Mogadore’s mightiest warriors, was killed by a teenage girl.

As this thought crosses my mind, I feel the numbing fog of a seizure overcome my mind. I stumble forward, trip and drop to the floor. The last thing I see before the seizure completely takes over my mind is the pile of ash that used to be the lion of Mogadore right next to me.

 

_Flickering light, then nothing. Nothing but nothingness. End of the tape._

_End of the tape. End of my memories._

_What follows now is the present. The here and now. What follows now depends on me. Depends on what I do. For the first time in my life, I have the chance to take control._

_And as if to grant_ m _e thi_ s very _chance, Fr_ a _nk op_ ens _the_ d _o_ or and _l_ ets me out.


	22. Now my feet won't touch the ground

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: NOW MY FEET WON’T TOUCH THE GROUND**

9

 

Unceasing gunfire, desperate cries, deafening explosions, collapsing structures, roaring engines, booming alarms, the smell of burnt flesh in the air and a metallic taste in my mouth.

Feels just like home.

As strange as this thought may appear at first, it’s true. Tiny pieces of memory are all I have left from my childhood on Lorien, and for some reason, a disturbingly large amount of those are impressions of fear and anguish. Over the course of all the years I’ve spent running and hiding from the Mogadorians, the terrifying sensations I felt during the invasion seem to have grown more and more important in my mind, replacing the rest of my childhood memories on Lorien. One night weighs more than the entire other years I lived my home planet.

Which is probably why the Mogadorian attack on our prison right now reminds me so much of Lorien.

Lorien, where it all began. All the pain, all the misery, all the hatred. Back at the Mogadorian invasion. Back in the destroyed streets of my hometown, running around aimlessly alongside my Cêpan, trying to shake off the hordes of Mogs chasing us.

Back when I had to leave everything I loved behind.

Back on Lorien.

I sigh. This time it’s different, though. This time I won’t run. This time I’m prepared. This time I’ll…

“Hurry the hell up, Nine, they’re close by already,” Six interrupts my little self-motivating pep-talk. “Seriously now, how hard can it be to just climb out of here?”

“Harder than it looks,” I shout down – or up, from my point of view – at Six. “But I‘m pretty sure I can make it this time.”

“Oh, wow, what a relief!” Six replies, and even with the raging uproar of the Mogadorian attack around us, I can clearly hear the scoffing sarcasm in her voice. “You know, Nine, the fact that you said you were ‘pretty sure’ the past eight times already kind of makes me doubt that you’ll make this time.”

I grumble something unintelligible, but deep down I know Six is right.

Climbing through this hole in the ceiling has proven itself way more difficult than I had imagined. With my legacy to manipulate gravity, tasks like this usually are as easy as pie. I can just jump off the ground and land on the ceiling, and it’s done.

The problem right now, though, is that the ceiling is not exactly solid after whatever bomb created that big hole hit the building. The second my feet touch the ceiling’s surface, cracks develop all along the plain, bright marble, making the entire ceiling crumble under my weight. Guess when this place was built, they didn’t make it so that people would be able to walk on the ceiling. Ignorant constructors.

The last couple of my attempts went horribly wrong. I keep either landing in already loose spots of the ceiling and instantly dropping down to the ground again, along with huge chunks of marble, or I make a wrong step while walking upside down and end up losing the ground – or the ceiling – under my feet. The closest I got to the hole was still way too far, and I only keep making things worse. Each time I fall, the entire ceiling gets more cracks and threatens to collapse right on top of our heads.

It’s a huge risk, but it’s the only way for Six and me to get out of here.

A crackling sound to my feet makes me stop dead in my tracks, and I immediately drop to my knees. A few loose chunks of marble crumble away and drop to the floor, where they shatter into thousands of little pieces.

I gulp. That was close. I need to start watching what I’m doing. The last few times I fell, I miraculously didn’t get any serious injuries, just some small bruises, which is quite remarkable, considering that it’s a thirty to forty feet drop. The real danger is not me falling off the ceiling, though. It’s the ceiling falling on me. If all this marble comes crashing down on us, I don’t think I’ll be quite as lucky. Another wrong step, and I might end up burying both Six and myself under tons of marble.

With wary movements, I slowly get up from crawling on all fours until I groggily stand as close to upright as I dare to.

I allow myself to take a short breather. Upright and upside down. So far, so good.

“Come on, Nine, we don’t have all day,” Six shouts up at me again. I sigh.

“Have you ever seen the movie ‘Ice Age’?” I yell back down at her.

“Ice what?” she says, and I shake my head in disbelief.

“Ice Age. Come on, what have you been doing all your childhood long?”

“Trying not to die,” she answers, and I shrug that off as a bad excuse.

“Anyway, in the movie there’s like this huge area completely covered in ice,” I explain to her while slowly working my way towards the big hole in the ceiling. “And then there’s this squirrel-thing… I think it’s a squirrel. Yeah, definitely some sort of ancient prehistoric squirrel. Umm, anyway, this little squirrel is trying to hide this nut in the ground, but then he makes a wrong step and then there’s this huge crack in the ice, and…”

“Great story, Nine,” Six cuts me off with an annoyed undertone. “If you could shut up and focus now, that would be even better.”

I sigh resignedly and get back to carefully plodding along the ceiling. Trying to teach Six about culture is just hopeless.

I’m really close to the hole already. Ten more feet maybe, probably even less. I can already see the heavily clouded but still somehow blue sky through it, feel the fresh, cold wind on my cheeks. Freedom is literally just a few steps away.

And just as I actually begin to believe we might actually finally get out of here, it happens again.

Distracted by the sudden chance of success, I don’t really watch where I put my foot and end up stepping right in a part of the ceiling that is completely fractured with cracks. It immediately gives in under my weight and breaks away from the rest of the ceiling, and before I know it, I’m falling towards the ground at full speed.

With loud smacking noise, I hit the floor. I don’t move as small chunks of marble rain down on top of me.

I hear a loud cry from Six and look up just in time to see her dodge a big boulder by leaping sideways. She rolls off and gets to her feet immediately, checking if there are any more pieces of marble trying to crush her. But the rest of the ceiling stays as it is, deciding not to collapse on top of us this time.

I slowly get up, brushing the dust off my shirt and rubbing my head. I really have no idea how I didn’t break every bone in my body, considering how many times I already fell down from up there today. Quite impressive, if I do say so myself.

Six lets out a loud sigh and trots over to me, kicking small bits of marble out of her way.

“You know, if you so desperately want to die, I’m fine with that,” she says. “But don’t get me killed in the process.”

“You might want to take a few steps back next time. Oh, and yeah, I’m fine by the way,” I answer defiantly.

“Don’t you get it? It’s not going to work out this way. All you’ve done so far is make things worse,” she says motioning up to the crumbling ceiling.

“Well, at least I’ve done _something_ ,” I mutter and immediately earn a fierce glare from Six.

“Oh, I’m so sorry I don’t have antigravity powers. Guess that’s my fault,” she says.

“No, but both of us being trapped in here definitely is,” I reply.

“And how could that possibly be my fault?” she asks with an annoyed undertone.

“You got me to follow you into the park and then we both got captured, end of the story,” I say. Six looks at me for a second, then she just gives me a short smile.

“So full of yourself,” she mutters, shaking her head.

I open my mouth to answer, but Six raises her hands, motioning me to stop.

“Listen, if you have to defend your honour, you can do that later,” she says in a bittersweet voice. “Right now, we have other things to worry about.”

I bite my lip, almost blurting out with some witty response, but I manage to hold back. Once again, I realize she’s right.

“Do you hear that?” Six continues, pointing behind me in the direction the sounds of the fight are coming from. “They’re getting closer.”

I listen to the gunshots and the explosions for a second. Just as Six said, they have grown louder than earlier. The Mogadorians can’t be very far away from our prison cell now. I don’t know why they seem to prefer fighting their way through to us instead of just entering through that hole in the ceiling, but it won’t really matter when they get here. We have no weapons, we don’t know how many Mogs are out there, and we have neither slept nor eaten in days. Those stunts I pulled off on the ceiling have exhausted me more than I want to admit, and I honestly don’t believe I can fight in this condition. Six looks a bit better – in a figurative sense I mean, nothing else. Our captivity doesn’t seem to have weighed her down quite as much, but she still isn’t going to be able to deal with a large amount of Mogs.

No, our only option is to get out of here before our enemies reach this cell.


	23. Tears and rain

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: TEARS AND RAIN  
**

 

4

 

Sometimes, when I’m watching her, it makes me wonder if angels might actually exist after all.

The way the faded daylight highlights all the beautiful facets of her face; or the way her golden hair gently swings from side to side in the wind, like her own little halo; even just the way she makes every single moment I spend at her side so unbelievingly precious – it’s just… supernatural.

She can’t be just an ordinary human being. It can’t be. No, she’d have to be an angel, there’s just no other explanation.

I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d just spread her wings and fly back to the heavens she came from. They must be missing her dearly up there. And who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want to have a being of such perfection and beauty around at all times?

She can’t be just an ordinary human being.

She’s something else.

Something _more_.

 “John,” Sarah says through the stormy wind and the pouring rain, softly grabbing my shoulder.

“Hm?” I mumble absent-mindedly, still staring at her graceful face, those deep blue eyes, those high cheekbones.

“Weren’t you listening?” she asks urgently, giving me a concerned glance.

“Not…listening?” I repeat in a muffled voice, my thoughts still occupied with the whole angel thing.

“John, are you okay?” she asks in a worried tone, looking me right in the eyes and ripping me out of my rapturous thoughts.

“Yeah,” I nod numbly. “Yeah, sorry, I’m fine. Just a little tired, that’s all. What were you saying?”

She gives me a short, worried look, then she decides to drop the matter.

“I was saying that it doesn’t look like that Mog army is trying to follow us,” she points out, motioning behind us with her thumb.

I glance over my shoulder. The two red backlights of the train are hardly visible in the distance. No signs of any Mogs. No signs of anyone but us at all, actually. Just the hills, the rain and the train tracks.

“Maybe they were afraid you’d beat them up if they did,” I say and poke her in the side.

She doesn’t laugh, not even a bit of a smile, she just frowns at me and shrugs. The look of concern on her face is quickly replaced with a fierce, hardened expression.

I raise an eyebrow. Definitely not the expected reaction.

“Or maybe they were just afraid of the jump,” I silently add.

“So was I,” Sarah says in a dismissive tone, giving me another upset look.

“Yeah, but you are not a seven foot tall, bloodthirsty monster,” I give back, trying to cheer her up.

She purses her lips and looks down at the ground, not even bothering to answer.

I open my mouth, but before I can crack another silly joke, she cuts me off.

“Just leave it, John,” she says with a hoarse, bitter voice.

I gulp. Boy, that escalated quickly. One moment she’s all worried about me, and the next second she’s pissed off for some unknown reason.

Doesn’t really sound like the Sarah I know.

In troubled silence, we continue our march along the railways. Flurries of rain keep pouring down on us from a dark grey sky. It’s impossible to tell when the storm is going to end, every time it looks like the wind is finally going to split the clouds apart, another thick, bulky layer just replaces the other one. The last time I saw the sun must have been back in the US, before we crossed the Canadian border. Before we walked into that Mog trap.

Before we walked into just another one of those Mog traps. I sigh.

Guess that’s the Mogadorians way of fighting wars. Preparing all kinds of traps for their enemies and then chase them into each and every one of them. Most of those traps aren’t even designed to kill the victims, only to ensure thy run right into the next one.

Just like the trap in that park where we lost Six, Nine and Ella. The Mogs had no intention of killing us all right there, they just wanted to split our group apart, so that the rest of us would eventually run straight into their next ambush. They already knew right then that we’d try to cross the Canadian border, I’m sure of it. All they had to do was wait for us to show up at that border station and then let the trap spring.

It really makes me wonder how. How do the Mogadorians keep anticipating every single one of our moves? It’s like they always know exactly where we are, just to strike right when we expect it the least.

A cold shiver runs down my neck as I realize what this could mean. We may not have lost our pursuers after all.

What if this is all just another one of their traps? What if they wanted us to escape the train? What if they wanted us to blindly follow those two stranger Mogs that blew up the train’s back wall? What if they’re just trying to make us believe we’re safe?

Well, if their plan was to split us apart into even smaller groups, we made it way too easy for them to succeed. I definitely shouldn’t have let Marina go out looking for Eight all by herself. When it comes to fighting Mogs, she’s the least experienced of all of us, and even though she really stepped it up in the few days I got to know her, I can tell she’s not ready to handle situations like these all alone. I mean, those two Mogs from the train really did look tough. Extraordinarily tough.

The guy probably was one of the biggest, most muscular Mogs I’ve seen so far, way more intimidating than your usual Mog soldier. Definitely not someone you want to mess with.

The girl on the other hand was a different kind of Mog, that’s for sure. There was something odd about her, I could feel it. Something dark, almost devouring. A deep and fascinating but deadly intelligence, ready to lull you in and eat you alive.

Seriously creepy, even for a Mogadorian.

I honestly have no idea how Eight didn’t realize this when he decided to just leap after them the second the jumped off the train. If he doesn’t stop pulling stunts like these, it's going to get him killed sooner or later.

We’ll have to sit down and have a chat about that sometime, provided Marina actually finds him.

I would have gone after Eight myself right away, if it hadn’t been for Sarah. I know it was not really what you’d call responsible to let Marina go alone, but Sarah had been so terrified of jumping off the train, I just couldn’t get myself to force her to do it quickly. As much as I hate the idea of having Marina wandering around these hills all by herself, I still prefer that to having Sarah to overcome her fears without me. Marina is an alien with superpowers, she has her telekinesis and the ability to see in the dark – which might just come in handy with all those clouds blocking out the sun – whereas Sarah has nothing but me.

Even now, she still seems kind of shaken from the jump. Walking through the pouring rain, her clothes are soaking wet to the point that water sprays to all directions with each movement she makes. Shivering from the cold wind she suddenly looks so vulnerable. I’d give her my coat, but it’s just as drenched as hers.

Her shoes are covered in muddy silt and the wind keeps blowing her long, blonde hair into her face, making her blink every few seconds.

She’s walking a few feet away from me, her hands buried deep inside her trousers’ pockets wit her shoulders lowered to a crestfallen posture. She appears so sad and lonely like that, it makes my heart ache. She’s stubbornly staring at the railways to our feet, her face frozen in an unusually cold expression.

I wonder what could have suddenly upset like that. Sarah usually never snaps, definitely not this easily. So what happened that could abruptly chang her mood from being worried about me to being deeply offended? Was it something I said? Something I’ve done? Is it because I forced her to make the jump off the train, even though she obviously was scared to death about it?

Whatever it is, I can’t stand seeing her like this.

I step closer to her and lay one arm around her shoulders, pulling her in towards me. She tenses up and I can see her expression hardening even more, but she lets it happen without a word.

We keep walking in this protective embrace, but it’s obvious that Sarah is still somewhat mad at me. She hardly pays me any attention as I try to shield her from the rain, and she slowly backs away from me every time I move closer.

In the end, I just can’t take this obsessing silence anymore. I think about the best way to talk about whatever issue is bothering her, but don’t really find anything to start the conversation

Follow the gut feeling it is, then.

“Is everything okay?” I cautiously ask as we start climbing just another hill. She turns away and pretends she didn’t hear me.

“Come on, Sarah, you know you can talk to me about anything,” I urge her. “Whatever you got on your mind, let it out.”

She lets out a loud snort and pulls away from me, so that my arm slides off her shoulders and smacks against my side.

“What if I were?” she says without any recognizable context, slowing down her pace.

“Were what?” I say with visible confusion.

“You said I was not a monster like them,’ she nods towards the disappearing train and the Mog army inside it. “But what if I were? What if I were a monster, John?”

I raise an eyebrow, not really knowing what to say, but before I can reply, she fully stops walking and finally turns around to me.

“No, John. I don’t mean the seven foot tall, bloodthirsty monster type,” she whiffs, her voice oozing with anger and frustration for some reason I just can’t seem to understand.

“You’re an angel, Sarah, not a monster,” I give back, trying to find the right thing to say. Or much rather trying not to say the wrong thing. To be honest, I have no clue what she is talking about.

“Sometimes, angels and monsters are the same,” she whispers, her eyes filling with tears. Or is it just the rain? At this point, I can’t even tell.

“Listen, Sarah, whatever I did, I am sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

She doesn’t even react.

I shake my head, feverishly looking for an explanation for her sudden downbeat behaviour. Then, a possible explanation suddenly strikes me.

“Is it because I forced you to jump off that train?” I say and she looks up. I take that as a yes.

 “Oh, god, I’m such an idiot. I definitely shouldn’t have pushed you to do it when you so obviously didn’t want to,” I curse through my clenched teeth, more to myself than to her.

“That’s not it…” she says again, but I hardly notice.

“What sort of person would do such a thing?” I hiss at my own ignorance.

“No, John, I…” she weakly begins, but I go on anyway.

“There must have been another solution, maybe if I would have…”

“IT’S NOT ABOUT THE GOD DAMN TRAIN, OKAY?” Sarah screams in such an infuriated voice I stop in the middle of the sentence and just stare at her with my mouth open.

Breathing heavily, her whole body rocks back and forth. She clenches her fists so fiercely, her knuckles are visible as small, white stripes on the back of her hands. Her eyes are closed while she struggles to keep her composure, and I can tell she’s really close to actually losing it.

Nearly half a minute passes before Sarah speaks again.

“It’s not about the train,” she finally repeats in a strained, forcedly calm tone. With her eyes still closed, I can tell she’s still focusing on keeping halfway calm. “It has nothing to do with the train.”

I wait in impatient anticipation while she takes one last deep breath and then finally opens her eyes. She fixes her gaze at some point in the distance and clears her throat.

 “Did Six talk to you about the time she and I were locked up in that prison cell?” she says, her voice still a bit shaky.

“Not much, she just said you really helped her get through that rough time.”

“I tried,” she says with a shrug, wiping a tear away from the corner of her eyes. Then her expression hardens again.

“But you see, all this time before she was put in my cell, there was no one around to help _me_. Every moment I spent in that dark cell was torment, every hour was agony, every day was insanity creeping a little bit closer. And I was so alone…” she says, lowering her voice as she speaks until it is no more than just a silent whisper in the wind. I stare at her in captivated tension, soaking in every single word she speaks while trying to make sense of what she’s actually trying to say.

“But the time kept passing, and things just kept getting worse. I was hungry and exhausted and didn’t know if I’d ever even get out of that hole. The only thing keeping me from just giving up was the very thought of you, my knight in shiny armour, storming in through that door and rescuing me. I just kept believing you’d get me out of that hole.

But as one dragging day followed the other and you just didn’t show up, I slowly gave up on hope. And then…”

Her voice cracks as she suddenly stops herself from saying any more. She bites her lip as if to keep any further words from escaping her mouth, but I know she’s keeping something from me.

I can see it in her eyes.

“Who are you, when you do bad things with good intentions?” she says in an exhausted but dead serious tone, more to herself than to me.

I feel a lump forming in my throat. Something definitely happened to her when the Mogs had her locked up in that cell, I know it. The girl standing in front of me just doesn’t seem like the Sarah I used to know back in Paradise.

Minutes pass in silence as we just stare at each other without moving. I keep wondering if I should push her to tell me whatever she was about to say, if I should her into doing something she may not want to, if I should do the same mistake I did on the train.

I know the answer to that question is probably yes. Yes, I should urge her to spill it out. Whatever she’s keeping from me, it has something to do with the Mogs, which means it’s dangerous. And we can’t handle any additional risks right now.

But looking at this beautiful girl in front of me, into this angel face, those beautiful but so sad blue eyes, I just can’t. I can’t do it.

So, instead of doing the right thing, I just sigh and put my arm back around Sarah’s shoulders. She shoots me another quick glance, and I can’t really tell if she’s disappointed or glad that I decided to drop the matter.

Maybe a little bit of both. Who knows…

“Go on?” I ask and she numbly nods.

Without any further words, we start marching on again. Silent, side by side, with our steps synchronized.

And always following the rail tracks, as if they could lead us into a brighter future.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Three

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: I’M LEAVING THE GROUND**

 

9

 

I press my head back into the nape of my neck, close my eyes and take a deep breath.

When I was younger, I always imagined joining the other Garde and fighting the Mogs would be fun and exciting. I dreamed of epic battles, action-packed chases, thrilling duels and glorious victories.

But this, this is just plain stupid. No one ever told me that saving the world would be so frustratingly monotonous.

Boring.

I sigh and open my eyes again. Guess being an alien is harder than it appears.

Looking up at the ceiling, I continue checking for spots that won’t crumble right away when I try landing on them.

But since I pretty much destroyed every single one of those spots the last few times I wandered around up there, it’s almost impossible to find one. In fact, facing the web of gaping cracks that covers the ceiling’s entire surface, I wonder how the whole structure didn’t collapse right on top of us yet.

Well, got to act before that happens, right? With one last look at the hopeless mess of a ceiling we got there, I decide to just try anyway. What’s the worst thing that can happen?

Okay, hundreds of tons of marble could come crashing down on us and bury us alive, but in the end, that’s still better than getting caught by the approaching Mog troops, right? At least I won’t have to hear Six’ nagging anymore this way.

I crouch down and get ready to jump up there one more time. The warm sensation of summoning my antigravity powers is already tickling in my bones when Six grabs me by the shoulder and holds me back.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she grumbles, not even trying to hide the aggressiveness in her voice. Who could blame her? The constant noises of battle outside are starting to give me a headache, too.

“Getting out of here?” I reply, trying to shake off her hand, but she doesn’t let me.

“You’ll never learn, will you? You remember what happened the last few times you tried doing it that way?” she says and I shrug.

“If you never try you never know.”

“Yeah, but you’ve tried nine times already,” she points out sceptically.

“Let’s make it a round number, then.”

“Are you really this dumb, Nine?” she says with an annoyed undertone. “You are so lucky you got the last number. If you were anything below four you’d already be dead long ago.”

I grind my teeth about that last comment and turn to face her.

“Alright then, Six, if you are so much smarter than me, then tell me how else we’re going to make it out of here! You wouldn’t possibly have a way to reach that hole without climbing the ceiling?”

“Actually I do,” she replies. “It’s pretty simple. We just lift each other up there by using telekinesis. End of the story.”

I blink at her a few times. I didn’t expect her to actually have a plan, and now she caught me off guard.

The only times I used my telekinesis on anything but inanimate objects was to bash Mogs out of my way. I have no idea if I’ll actually be able to levitate Six without breaking every bone in her body.

On the other hand, that won’t be much of an issue. If Six thinks she can do it, I sure as hell can, too.

As much as I try to deny it, all in all her idea sounds way better and less dangerous than anything I’ve come up with so far.

“Might be worth a try,” I grumblingly admit and Six gives me a triumphant grin.

“Lift me up first, and once I’m through the hole, I’ll get you up there,” I add to make her moment of victory pass as quickly as possible.

She nods, and without further warning, she takes a step away from me, closes her eyes and raises both her arms in a fluent motion.

I let out a manly squeak as a sudden grasp forms around my body and squeezes the air out of my lungs. My initial instinct to break free of the invisible force that presses against me from all sides is useless. It’s way stronger than I had imagined. In fact, it’s so firm, I can hardly breathe.

“Not…so…tight,” I manage to get out, gasping for air.

“Oh, sorry, I hadn’t noticed” she says in a somewhat unconvincing way. She keeps me on tenterhooks for another moment, then the clamp around me loosens up a bit.

“You know, they say a firm grip says a lot about a person,” she adds with a pleased giggle. I role my eyes and let out a muffled grunt.

“Ready?” Six asks.

“Does it matter?” I respond, and she shoots me a sheepish smile. Or at least I think so. I’m not sure, because at the next moment I’m yanked off my feet, heading towards the ceiling. It’s one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever experienced, the sensation of suddenly losing the ground below your feet, followed by complete weightlessness and the pressing and squeezing everywhere.

I press my lips together to prevent any more screams from escaping.

“You alright up there?” Six yells, and I nod down at her in confirmation. I don’t trust my voice not to be pitched quite yet.

I’m already about ten feet above the ground, still rushing higher when I suddenly notice something is wrong. Something has changed. Something is missing. Something that has been there for a while now is gone.

It takes me a few seconds of concentrated thinking to realize what it is.

The sounds of battle outside our cell have disappeared. No more gunfire, no more cries, no more explosions. The fight seems to be over. One of the two sides must have won. And you don’t have to be a strategic genius to know which one that could be.

Just as this thought strikes me, a sudden noise nearby makes me tense up.

“Are you hearing this?” I yell down at Six.

“Hearing what?” she shouts back up.

“Someone’s talking, like, right outside our cell,” I say, closing my eyes to hear more clearly. It’s louder than just a few seconds ago, which means whoever it is that is talking over there must be getting closer to our cell.

It must be at least two people talking to each other – hi not Mogadorians, thank god – and by the sound of it they aren’t exactly having the friendliest conversation.

“…Heavy casualties, Ma’am. Those missiles took out half the base before we could react. And have you seen their guns, Ma’am? They just tore through tanks like they were nothing. It’s like those guys are not from this world,” a male voice rings through to us.

“You are seeing ghosts, Jenkins,” a woman answers with a loud, pitched laugh. “Now open this door or I’ll get over there and do it myself. You don’t want agent Purdy to hear about this disregard of orders, now, do you?”

“That’s her,” Six gasps and turns around to where the voices are coming from. “That’s agent Walker!”

In her excitement, Six seems to completely forget about moving me any higher. With a jolt, my ascent comes to a stop and I’m stuck in mid air, floating a few feet below the ceiling.

I’d tell her to finish getting me up there before anything bad happens, but I don’t want to miss out on what the two people outside our cell are saying. Maybe they have news about the other Loric. Who knows.

“…and that’s why you will open it, immediately!” the woman is yelling, and now I recognize her voice, too. Six was right, it is our good old agent Walker.

“Ma’am, you… With all due respect, you need to go see a medic. That wound on your head…” the man begins in a nervous tone, but Walker interrupts him.

“To hell with the god damn wound, Jenkins, stop blubbering about it,” agent Walker’s voice rings through to us and I can’t help but shudder at its sound. There’s something oddly creepy about it, something that gives me cold goosebumps.

“If ol’ agent Walker wanted to hear someone cry around all day long, I would have become a nurse and not an FBI agent.”

She lets out another hysteric, pitched laugh.

“Now open this darned cell, Soldier, I need to have a little talk with our little friends.”

“You can’t go in there now, Ma’am,” the man firmly says after a short pause of silence. “I mustn’t open it, those are my orders. No one enters this cell, whether it’s one of them or one of us. No exceptions.”

“But…But… But I’m the one who gives orders around here, soldier!” Walker barks back, her voice changing from sounding miserable to freaking furious within just one sentence.

“Not anymore,” the man replies, and you can clearly hear the nervousness in his voice. “Agent Purdy told us not to take orders from you anymore, Miss. He said you were suspended after the park-fiasco.”

“FIASCO?”

There’s a short pause, during which Walker starts to repeatedly let out snorts of anger while mumbling things like “he did not just...” or “that’s just not fair”. After a while, she gets louder and louder, until she finally reminds me of a bull’s panting in a rodeo, right before he’s about to dash off towards the matador.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to…” the soldier begins, but a deafening gunshot cuts him off. A loud groan and the sound of a body dropping to the floor follow.

Six inhales loudly and seems to have fully forgotten about me still floating around in the air, because her grip around me slowly begins to loosen up.

“Umm, Six?” I gingerly ask, but she’s too distracted by the scene we just witnessed to even notice.

“Six, if you don’t mind…” I try again, but she doesn’t even seem to hear me.

And before I can say anything else, her grasp around me is fully gone and the next thing I know is I’m dropping the entire thirty feet from the ceiling to the ground one more time.

The cracking sound my bones make when I land on my back is scary. A numbing pain shoots through my spine, and I think I must have broken at least a few ribs.

Six turns around to me, startled by my groans of pain. It takes her a second to realize how I got from floating around near the ceiling to lying down here so quickly.

“Oh, woops, sorry,” she mumbles, rushing over to where I landed. Grabbing me by the arm, she slowly helps me up.

“Are you alright, Nine?” she says in a strange tone I’ve never heard from her before. That couldn’t possibly be concern in her voice?

I let out a loud moan in response. The pain creeping through my back as I get on my feet is sharp, but bearable. Maybe I didn’t break anything after all. Maybe I was lucky.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Six says and turns back to the direction agent Walker’s voice came from.

I roll my eyes and let out a resigning sigh. Six can be so easy to hate at times.

I try walking, which works just fine, the only problem is that I can’t keep my upper body upright while doing so. All in all, though, I’m glad nothing else happened. Things could be much worse right now.

And that’s exactly when it gets worse.

A loud buzz comes from the force field, so loud it keeps on ringing in my ears a few seconds after the actual sound is gone already. I toss my head from side to side, looking for the source of the sudden noise. A small hole begins to form at exactly the same spot agent Walker entered through last time she paid our cell a visit. And just like last time, I hardly recognize the FBI agent as she limps through the hole and enters our cell with a shrill “TADAAAA!”.

It’s hard to believe, but her appearance actually seems to have worsened even more since we last saw her. There’s a huge gash on her head, still fresh and bleeding heavily, as if it has just recently been inflicted. From the fight with the Mogs, maybe. Or maybe she just hit her head somewhere. She’s so unsteady on her feet, uncontrollably swinging from side to side as she slowly moves towards us, I wouldn’t be surprised if she got it from falling on her face.

Pens and small scraps of white paper are sticking out of the scorched orange tufts that once used to be her hair, and I don’t even want to know how they got there. The left half of her face is covered in a crust of soot, blood and dirt. This combined with the sinister, insane smile on her lips gives her the looks of some sort of psychopathic murderer. Her eyes are torn wide open, staring at Six and me with a mix of irritated emptiness and mad amusement.

To be honest, she looks way scarier than most of the crazy killers in all those horror movies Sandor and I used to watch back when he was still alive. She just seems so…real.

“Good evening, my little alien friends,” Walker says in one of the creepiest voices I have ever heard. I know right then that this moment will haunt me in my sleep for a very long time.

I shake my head and force myself to focus. Walker is alone, there’s no sign of any other enemies, neither human nor Mogadorian. I don’t know exactly what happened to the soldier she talked to earlier, but I don’t think this version of agent Walker let him walk away just like that. The agent doesn’t look like she actually knows what’s going on around her. She’s definitely in a way worse condition than us; we can easily take her down, no problem.

If we do it quickly, Six and I might even still have enough time to escape through the hole in the ceiling and get as far away form here as possible before the Mogs get to this cell. With a headstart, we might have a chance of escaping the situation without having to deal with an entire army of angry Mogadorian folks.

Walker whistles a cheerful tune as she slowly moves closer towards us, occasionally stopping and muttering unintelligible things to herself before raising her voice again.

“My little alien friends!” She greets us, making a small pause to run her tongue over her lips with a creepy slurping sound.

“Ol’ agent Walker believes she owes you an apology. It was rude of her to just leave you pretty little alien kiddies standing like that on her last visit. Not nice at all. So, in order to continue discussing the matters we talked about earlier, might ol’ agent Walker invite you to join her on a little walk outside these adorably comfortable premises?” she asks, her voice pitched in childishly overacted friendliness.

“Yeah, sure, a little walk while there are thousands of Mogs waiting for us outside this cell,” I reply calmly. The sarcasm in my voice seems to irritate Walker, and she briefly just stares at me with an empty expression.

“So is that a yes, then?” she asks hopefully, and I role my eyes in disbelief. What the hell is wrong with these humans?

Taking a deep breath, I prepare to attack the agent at the next opportunity. We can’t waste any more time with her.

“No? They don’t want to come with us? That’s a shame. Well, then we’ll just have to do it the hard way, right?” Walker silently mumbles, and I get the strange feeling that she’s not talking to us.

“My little alien friends,” she then adds with a louder voice. “Ol’ agent Walker didn’t want it to come to this, but she brought you a gift, just for this very special occasion.”

With a quick movement, she takes out a big, old-fashioned hunting rifle from the inside of her coat.

She curses as it gets caught in a loose rag from her shirt, though, and for a second she’s too occupied with trying to free it to pay us any attention. This is our chance.

Before I can reconsider it, I start dashing towards Walker, ready to tackle her and wrest the gun from her hands before she can fire it.

But just when I am close enough to reach her with one big leap, a sharp, piercing pain shoots through my spine. All those times I landed on my back finally seem to take their toll.

I stumble and fall to the floor, a blaring cry of pain escaping my throat. My vision ignites in a harsh white spark and for a moment, I’m unable to do anything but just lie on my side and gasp for air, trying not to lose consciousness.

Then, there’s another scream, not mine this time. Six’ voice seems to come form really far away when she shouts something I can’t quite understand, as if I was lying behind a thick layer of glass. The panic and anger in her voice are enough to somewhat clear my head, though and after a few seconds of struggling with myself, I manage to more or less regain control over my mind.

When I open my eyes, all I see are strangely buckled, blurry objects and lights. I force myself to focus on the one that resembles Six the most and wait for my eyes to adjust. It takes about four or five seconds for my vision turns sharp again, and slowly but surely, I can make out Six’ silhouette. Shaky details follow: her long, blonde dyed hair, the olive skin tone of her face, her mouth gaping wide open in some sort of shock, her flashing grey eyes filled with disbelief and horror, fixed on me.

“What?” I manage to cough with a hoarse voice,  trying to sit up, but Six just shakes her head. She seems too upset to even speak. With a shaky hand, she points at my chest, her mouth opening and closing over and over again without making a single sound.

I hesitatingly follow her gaze and look down at myself, from my torn up shoes to the dirty Jeans all the way up to my ripped shirt.

Then I raise both eyebrows in surprise.

That’s odd. Last time I checked, the heavily bleeding hole gaping right in the middle of my chest wasn’t there.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Four

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: RUNAWAY**

10

 

„Watch out, Five. The wall."

"Yeah, I know."  
"We're going to crash, Five."  
"Relax. A little bit of faith, maybe?"  
"Five… Five! The wall! Five, the wall!"  
"Don't worry, Ellie, I got this."  
"Five! THE WALL! THE WAAAAAALL!”

A long, frantic scream escapes my mouth as our big, camouflage-painted tank frontally slams into the garage wall. I'm thrown forward in my seat and almost hit my head at the various displays and monitor units in front of me. At the last second, my seatbelt yanks me back and I drop back into the cold leather of my chair.

A small red lamp lights up to my side, right next to a sign that says 'STUCK'. I look at one of the countless monitors in front of me, looking for the one that – as Five explained earlier – shows the immediate surroundings of the tank using some sort of infrared technology or so. Right now, though, the display is completely black, as if something was blocking the sensors.

“I think we’re stuck in the wall,” I say to Five, who’s sitting to my left, in the driver’s seat.

“Are we, though?” he replies, reaching out to press a couple buttons on the dashboard in front of him until the red light goes out. With a satisfied look on his face – well, I guess it’s a satisfied look, with the bandage over his eyes I can’t really tell for sure – he pulls a couple more switches and finally lays both hands on the steering wheel.

“You might want to hold on to something,” he says to me, hardly leaving me enough time to follow his advice before stepping on the gas, though. The engine erupts in roaring protest as Five fully depresses the accelerator pedal and the tank makes a huge leap forward. In a rumbling explosion of dust, sparks and huge chunks of what used to be the garage wall, we plunge our way through the thick wall of the garage, making a loud scraping noise as the tank grazes along the concrete. The damage to the paintwork must be catastrophic right now.

Then, without further warning, the entire wall suddenly gives in with a rumbling noise and we come shooting out of the hole we just created at full speed.

“When you said we’d steal one of their vehicles, I thought you meant a sandbuggy or a jeep or something like that. But _this_?” I yell, pressed to the back of my seat from the sudden jump.

“Can a jeep do that?” Five shrugs and motions back at the destroyed wall behind us.

“Maybe not,” I admit. “But still, a jeep might not have drawn quite as much attention to our escape.”

As if on cue, two smaller monitors in front of me suddenly flicker to life, and after a short booting time, they show images of what I guess is the surrounding area, one of the front view and the other one of the rear. It’s in black and white for some reason, though, so I’m not exactly sure what the world outside our tank actually looks like.

As far as I can tell, we’re in some sort of asphalted courtyard, in the middle of nowhere. Apart from the small group of plain square buildings we just escaped from, there are no other signs of civilisation in sight, except for a long barbed wire fence surrounding the whole place about half a mile away. The sky is darkened by heavy clouds of rain, and thousands of small raindrops rush past my monitors, bursting into little puddles as they hit the ground.

I am dying to see it with my own eyes, to just go outside and feel the cold, fresh rain on my skin. After all this time in that stinky cell, I’d be more than happy to finally move around freely, even if it were just for a few moments.

But I know that’s not possible, not until we leave this military base behind us. Up to then, I’ll have to stick with sitting around in this cramped tank with hardly enough space to fit my feet.

A few metal rungs are embedded in the wall right next to me, leading up to the tank’s turret. I rest my arm on the lowest of them, playing with the thought to climb up there, open the hatch at the end of the ladder, and just stick my head out into the rain for a while. Get some fresh air into my lungs, listen to the drops as they smack the ground.

Five reaches out for me and pats my shoulder.

“Soon,” he says, having read my thoughts again. “Soon you’ll be able to run around as much as you want.”

It used to be a big issue, back when Crayton was still alive: Five reading our mind all the time. Crayton would sometimes get really mad because of it, he’d say it weren’t right to invade our privacy like that, and that Five needed to ask permission before doing it.

But that’s not the way Five sees it, no, Five doesn’t think like the rest of is. Five doesn’t care about things like privacy, and he definitely isn’t one to ask permission. And no matter what Crayton would say, nothing could ever change his mind.

Over time, I got used to him always knowing what’s going on in my head. There’s even something reassuring about it, not having any secrets from him. Not having to pretend like I’m the helpless little number Ten…

Crayton would always say him knowing everything about me couldn’t lead anywhere good, that this form of trust shouldn’t be forced.

But I trust Five. He hasn’t let me down once.

“We just need to get past that fence and you’re free to do whatever you want,” he says with a smile.

I sigh and turn back to the monitors. Behind us, the cloud of dust that has formed around the hole we ripped into the buildings wall is almost fully washed away by the rain already. In an oddly childish thought, I had almost expected the hole to have the exact shape of our tank, like in all those stupid cartoons Crayton would never allow me to watch.

Comparing reality to cartoons, though, the hole looks rather bulky and shapeless. How uninspiring.

Looking at the collapsed building, I have to admit nothing else really suggests that this actually is a military base from the outside. If you don’t know what it is, you could mistake it for just another one of those old and ugly factories. Buildings like these exist in thousands of places all over the states. No one would suspect this is a secret underground US army facility.

Got to give the designers credits.

But considering the fact that this actually is a military base, I’m surprised at how easily we were able to escape from here. I mean, of course the people guarding this place are just human, and Five has quite some experience in breaking in and out of highly secured facilities. But still, it seems a bit odd that they just let us get out like that. The only attempts they made to stop us were those few soldiers that chased us back when we were running through those endless corridors inside the base. After that, it’s like they just gave up. No cars, no jets, nothing comes after us, even though they obviously had more than enough vehicles back in that garage.

“Why aren’t they following us?” I ask Five after a while of mulling over this question.

“They have others things to worry about,” Five replies in a tone as if he was expecting the question to come sooner or later.

“And what would that be?” I say, staring at the monitor that shows the tank’s rear view. Still nothing

“The Mogs. They’re afraid the Mogs might attack.”

I frown, not quite getting what he’s talking about. Why would the US military be afraid of a Mog attack. They’re allies after all.

“You remember that park that got wrapped up in those giant roots? Where the soldier caught you?” Five asks and I nod.

“Of course. I almost died there after all,” I answer.

“And do you know how the plants got there in the first place?”

I shake my head.

“It’ a chemical compound that mainly consists of ammonia and iron pyrites, but also uranium, sulphur dioxide and a bit of sodium chloride,” he says. I shoot him a confused look, not quite understanding what he’s actually saying. It sounds like he’s just making up smart sounding words.

“What does that have to do with the humans being afraid of the Mogs?”

Five gives me a patient smile, motioning me to wait.

“It’s an artificial super-fertilizer,” he continues. “On contact with any plant’s roots, a chemical reactions will take place, exchanging the natural phytohormones – that’s what causes the plant’s growth – with artificial, way more aggressive ones. You pour the liquid into the ground and whatever plants are down there, they’ll immediately start growing rapidly until they reach about a hundredfold of their usual size. The formula itself was discovered by humans only a few days ago, but it was the Mogs who used it in the park.”

“Mogs? I didn’t see any Mogs,” I interject.

“That’s because, by the time you and the others arrived at the park, they were all dead already. About thirty or forty highly trained Mogadorians, all wiped out by Six and Eight,” Five explains.

“That doesn’t make sense. No way Six and Eight could have fought so many Mogs without being gunned down, there were snipers all over the place,” I point out, but Five shakes his head.

“Human snipers, Ella, not Mogadorian ones. This is where it gets interesting: The snipers didn’t even fire a single shot before you guys arrived at the park.”

I frown at the monitors in front of me, trying to make sense of what he’s saying.

“Wait, are you telling me the humans _let_ the Mogs die?”

Five nods and leans towards me, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The ambush was meant to be a combined attack of both Mogadorians and the US army. The beefy Mog soldiers were meant to fight the Garde on the ground while the humans would snipe them down from the surrounding buildings. A simple yet effective plan. They took out number Eight first, so he wouldn’t be able to teleport out of there. And they knew that while number Six can wipe out entire armies all by herself, she’s vulnerable to well-coordinated, organised attacks, so they sent a couple of Mogs as cannon fodder to distract her while the snipers in the buildings posed the real threat. Minimal losses, maximal gains,” he says indifferently, as if he were just talking about a smart move in a chess game.

“Only that when the time to strike came and Six was killing the Mogs off one by one, the humans just stood by and did nothing.”

I stare at him with my mouth open, slowly putting the pieces together in my mind.

“Is that why those people aren’t chasing after us right now? They don’t want to send any troops out, because they are worried the Mogadorians might want to take revenge for those few soldiers the humans refused to save?”

“Oh, it’s not just the few soldiers. The humans also took number Six, number Nine and you, Ellie, to secret US military bases, instead of handing you over to the Mogadorians. And when the Mogs demanded that you’d be transferred to Mog prisons, the humans pretended like they didn’t have you in custody.”

“So that’s what that group of Mogs you killed earlier was so angry about,” I conclude, and Five nods.

“Exactly. Remember what their leader said into that cell phone, right after they killed those two humans?”

“Yeah, he said ‘execute the assaults on all targets’,” I say, suddenly realizing what that means. “So the Mogs are going to attack the humans sometime soon?”

“If they haven’t done it already,” Five agrees. “The Mogs aren’t exactly known for hesitating when it comes to killing.”

“So the humans only used the Mogs as bait,” I think out loudly. “And then they just waited for us to show up.”

“Yeah. They thought they could capture all of you at once, but number Four, number Seven, number Eight and Sarah Hart were able to escape.”

I let out a sigh of relief. At least the others made it out. “And what happened to Six and Nine?”

“They were taken to another prison, somewhere in Pennsylvania. I tracked you down first, though, I just had to make sure you were alright. I’ll go after them once I got you back to the others,” Five says and I shoot him a sceptical glance.

“Aren’t you planning on joining me and the others?”

“You know that’s not how I do things,” he says, and I nod.

Five has always preferred staying in the incognito, operating in the shadows, pulling the strings from the background. If he doesn’t think the time has come to step out of those shadows, then it’s fine. He usually knows what he’s doing. I’m just going to miss him when he’s not around, though.

With a sigh, I turn back to the monitors. We’re really close to the barbed wire fence now, and there’s still no sign of anyone pursuing us. Maybe we were actually right with out theory about those people being too afraid of a Mog attack to expose any troops.

We speed up one more time as the tank gets closer to the fence, and I realize Five’s planning to go rambo through it like the wall earlier.

“Here we go again,” I say to myself as we’re just a few feet away, preparing for the impact. I clench my hands into my seatbelt, expecting the same kind of collision as last time. But as we hit the fence, we just rip a nice, clean hole in it, and before I know it we’ve already passed it.

“That was easy,” I note and Five shrugs, as if to say ‘told you so’. I role my eyes.

We drive on in silence for a while, slowly leaving the base behind us. I keep glancing at the monitor with the rear view, but I still can’t see anyone following us.

“There still is one thing I don’t understand, Five,” I say after checking the monitor for the hundredth time. “Why would the US government want to betray the Mogs? I mean, the alliance between them was working out quite well for both sides, right?” I ask, and Five shrugs.

“Don’t forget these are humans we’re talking about, Ella. Do they even need a reason to start a war?” He says, and I tilt my head, not quite convinced.

“That seems like a harsh thing to say,” I say.

“You think so?” Five replies with a shrug. “Well, of course it could also have an actual reason. Maybe the humans thought they could be slick and take you guys prisoner without the Mogs noticing. They’d have something to blackmail the Mogs with this way. Or maybe they just realized this whole thing was getting over their heads and they wanted an insurance, which probably is a much more likely option. They finally saw how dangerous the Mogs really are and started asking themselves the questions the should have asked a long time ago.”

“What questions?” I demand.

“For example, are the Mogs actually going to just leave earth after their business with the Loric is finished? Or are they maybe looking for more than just wiping out the rest of an alien species, that – for all practical purposes – is already pretty much eradicated? Is this maybe just a cover for something bigger, let’s say, an invasion, maybe?”

I stare at Five as he turns his attention back to driving.

“Why would they agree to working with the Mogs in the first place, then?” I ask him.

“Picture yourself as a the head of the USA, Ella”, Five replies. “For the past decades, your country has been the world’s most important and powerful nation. But now there are other states rising to power, looking to compete for your position, and you’re not going to be able to keep up with them for much longer. A couple more years, maybe, then they’ll be taking over and your country will steadily lose power after that.

And in this catch-22 situation, the Mogs suddenly appear out of nowhere, offering you superior weapons, superior technology and superior knowledge. Things that will give you power. Things that will get you back on top of the world. All you have to do is capture a few little kids that are causing nothing but trouble anyway, then it’s all yours. Tempting isn’T it? Wouldn’t you agree to that in their place, Ellie?”

I want to answer no, that I would never agree to that, that I’d never work together with a Mog, but then I hesitate. The way Five put it, the human’s decision to help the Mogs kill us actually sounds reasonable. Almost as if he’s making excuses for them.

“I’m not making excuses, I’m just seeing things from a different perspective,” Five responds my thoughts. “Understanding the way your enemies think is key to winning a war.”

A cold shiver runs down my back as he says that. It somehow reminds me of a something Uncle Pit once told me.

It was after one of those counselling sessions with those other important people, after my home planet got destroyed by the Mogs.

Uncle Pit had stepped out of the meeting looking infuriated, and when I had asked him what had happened he had just shaken his head.

“Those people, child, they’re always talking about this conflict like it’s a war. A glorious, enduring war, in which only the strong and brave will come out on top. But this is not a war. It takes two sides for it to be a war. No, this is not a war. And as long as we can put our differences behind us, it will never be.”

I had long forgotten about that moment, but right now, I remember each and every word clearly, as if uncle Pit had just spoken them this second.

With sudden determination, I turn around in my seat, grabbing Five by the shoulder and pulling him towards me.

“This is not a war, Five. We’re merely surviving,” I say with quite some forcefulness. “You need to finally understand that. You can’t just go around, doing your own little crusade while the rest of us is dying out there.”

“We talked about this already, Ellie,” he says back in a somewhat stiff tone, shaking my hand off his shoulder. “I can’t just put it behind me, you know that’s not possible for me.”

“Why?” I bitterly reply. “What is it that makes it so impossible? What is so great about this ‘war’ that makes you want to believe in it so badly? There must be something that is more important to you than your own little personal revenge. Something that’s worth forgetting about all this and just move on.”

Five takes his time before he answers, and I know him well enough to tell it takes him quite some effort to get the words out.

“There is something,” he says slowly, nodding his head at every word that crosses his lips.

I bite my lip, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t.

“What?” I finally blurt out when I can’t stand it anymore. “What is it?”

He exhales loudly and if the bandage wouldn’t be covering his eyes, I’m sure they’d be fixed on me right now.

“There is one thing I have left,” I rise in my seat in anticipation. “The only thing that keeps me from going insane from thoughts of revenge and hatred.

It’s you.”


	26. Chapter Twenty-Five

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: LITTLE THINGS GIVE YOU AWAY**

7

 

I.

Am.

Angry.

I am angry. So angry, my heart aches. No, not just the expression, it literally hurts. As if someone was punching me in the chest over and over again, and with each hit my anger grows bigger and bigger.

All exhaustion and doubt are suddenly washed away the second they appear between the trees.

Three figures, silhouetted against the gloomy background of trees and bushes. Their voices cut through the steady drumming of the rain, disrupting the evening silence of the forest I found myself in.

Mog voices, coming closer. But also another voice between them, one I know all to well.

I manage to leap behind a thick bush before they can see me, not really caring about the thorns cutting into my face. I role off my shoulder and get right back up on my knees, peaking through the scrub at the three silhouettes as they come closer. When they are within earshot, I quickly duck back down and hold my breath so they don’t notice me. My heart is pumping so quickly, I fear it will explode.

No, that’s not true. I don’t fear it will explode, I dare it to. Explode, blow up, and destroy. Let out all the anger that’s cramping my insides. Abandon myself to the rage and forget about the all the rest. Jump up and give everyone what they deserve.

I may regret this moment some time later on, but right now I couldn’t care less. I am mad, and I am going to explode.

And here they come, three figures comfortably strolling through the trees, deeply engrossed in a nice little chat. Just wandering around, not paying their surroundings any attention.

Not paying _me_ any attention. Not realizing that there is an insanely angry Loric just waiting to lose her compulsion just behind this bush.

Leading the way through the forest is the big Mog guy from the train. His big, bulky hands buried deep inside the pockets of his military Mog uniform, he is silently walking in front of the two others, staring at the ground in front of him and listening to their conversation.

Right behind him follows that creepy Mog girl from earlier. Her shoulder-long black hair waves in the wind, lashing against the back of her head. I have to bring up quite some willpower to stop myself from joining her hair right now.

Walking beside the Mog girl, is – oh, what a surprise – Eight. With a big grin on his face and a skipping pace, he seems to be enjoying himself quite a bit. He keeps gazing at the Mog girl out of the corner of his eyes as the two of them come strolling along side by side, excitedly whispering to each other. Chit chatting about this and that, not a care in the world. Why not hold hands, too, while we’re at it?

I shake my head in silent anger and wonder what it will take for Eight to finally realize he has to carry some responsibility himself. His very existence is a responsibility, and he can’t just throw that away this easily. He can’t always rely on us to come and get him out of trouble.

Eight’s clothes are soaking wet and his shoes are covered in mud and dirt, but he himself looks unharmed.

A fact that somehow just makes me angrier.

I just spent a goddamn hour looking for him in the blistering cold and the surging rain, I ran further than I ever ran before and I never gave up, even though my feet are killing me right now. My lungs are still burning and I don’t think I will be able to even walk the next couple of days after a run like this. All just because I was afraid something might happen to Eight. I pushed my limits more than I should have, but it was always worth the effort, because at the end of this terror run, chances were that I’d see Eight alive and well again.

And now that I found him here, taking a turn in the wood with two Mogs. It’s just so different from what I had expected it to be. He’s not dying, he’s not fighting, he’s not even hurt, and he sure as hell won’t be grateful when I storm out there and ‘save’ him from those Mogs. In fact, I have no idea what he’s doing with his two new friends, but it looks like he’s having the time of his life.

Without us.

Without me.

My hand is shaking so hard I have to press it against my chest make it stop. It hardly helps, though. With a numb feeling in the back of my head I slowly lay down on my belly and burry my face in the ground, trying to shut out the world around me. Partly because Eight and the others are coming so close that they’ll easily spot me if I don’t duck lower, but mostly because I just don’t want to think about all this anymore. Sometimes, I think it’d be easier to forget about all this.

But I can’t, can’t suppress my thoughts anymore, can’t swallow the anger and frustration, can’t always be the forgiving one.

Can’t bare the idea that Eight let me down once more.

I roll over to my back and stare into the pouring rain, letting the drops wipe the mud off my face.

Watching the storm from below has a special kind of beauty to it. The masses of tiny raindrops shimmer like long silvery strings in the gloomy daylight. As they drum on my face, I can almost imagine myself flying away, my soul escaping this dark world and fleeing to far away places. Somewhere my life doesn’t look quite as grim, somewhere I don’t have to chase after people who don’t even want my help, somewhere I can actually make spend my time the way I want it to. Why is this whole thing so pointless?

Eight’s voice echoes through the forest as he lets out a loud, cheerful laugh about something the girl just said. My insides cramp up at the sound of it and I feel like I’m going to throw up any second. What the hell is this guy’s problem? Seriously, I don’t get it. First, he has the rest of us worried to death by suddenly disappearing like that, and then he has nothing better to do than to crack jokes with our biggest enemies? Does he really believe those Mogs won’t kill him at the first chance they get? Loric are supposed to be outstandingly smart, it’s about time Eight starts to act like one.

A sudden new rush of adrenaline kicks in as the three of them come closer and closer.

Why would I try to hide anymore? Why would I hold myself back? Why would I give a damn about Eight if he so obviously doesn’t care about me at all? Why?

The answer shoots through my mind the second Eight and the others walk past me.

I may be Marina, the shy and reserved girl from the abbey, Marina the gullible idiot who will believe every single one of your bad excuses, and Marina the unskilled, scared good-for-nothing, but I am also Marina, the one who gets fucking angry when you decide to so obviously make a fool out of her.

And I am also Marina, the one who’s about to get up and smack everyone into the next best tree.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Six

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: THE DAMAGE DONE**

 

6

 

I just stare at the wound in Nine’s chest for another moment. Watch the first drop of blood trickle out of it, watch as more drops build up and push over the edge of the wound, watch the dark, glossy trace that slowly spreads all over Nine’s ripped shirt.

The noise of the gunshot still echoes in my mind, bounces back and forth inside my head, replays over and over. The bullet shooting out of the rifle, flying through the air, slamming into Nine and tearing a big hole into his chest.

With a shiver running down my neck, I shake the images out of my head and unfreeze from my numbness.

With two big leaps I’m right beside Walker, who drops her rifle the second my hands tighten around her throat. I lift her up in the air with a loud, furious cry that drowns out the sudden choking sounds escaping the agent’s mouth. Her feet dangling a few inches above the ground, she squints down at me, her expression full with gloating excitement about shooting Nine.

I tighten my grip around her throat even more. The disturbingly insane grin on her face doesn’t go away, though. Even when she turns pale from the lack of oxygen, she still doesn’t wipe it off.

“Wait, my little alien friend,” Walker finally manages, gasping for air.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now,” I hiss through my clenched teeth, staring her right in the eyes. I want to see her reaction when she realizes this is the end of ‘ol’ agent Walker’.

“How about this,” Walker pants. “Your little companion right here is not going to die…”

“Great. And why would that make me want to kill you less?” I give back, squeezing even tighter.

“…if you don’t let me down right now,” Walker adds. I stare at her with a mix of rage and disgust as she fidgets and hammers her fists against my arms, trying to free herself. But even as she brings up all the strength left in her body, she’s not even close to escaping my grip. The satisfaction from watching her struggle is overwhelming.

“The bullet I shot him with,” Walker croaks with the last ounce of strength. “It was poisoned. Your friend may survive the shot itself, but he will certainly die from the toxic deposits in his blood system, if he doesn’t take the antidote within the next two hours.”

I gape at her twitching face, realizing what she just said.

“You poisoned him?” I shout at her, shaking her whole body back and forth. I want to snap her neck so badly right now, to see the life slowly fade out in those maniacal eyes. But if she’s telling the truth, I’d be signing Nine’s death sentence with it. Of course, Walker telling me about the poison doesn’t proves it’s true, especially not in her condition. She looks like she’s gone completely crazy, a classic nutcase. I wouldn’t count on her word. But if just the slightest chance exists that what she tells actually is the truth, I have no choice but to let her live.

At least for the moment.

I puff out an angry sigh and let Walker drop to the floor. She collapses onto the ground, where she remains lying for a few seconds, clenching her throat and coughing intensely.

I look at her nauseatedly as she lies to my feet, shaking my head. I can’t believe the woman lying in front of me once was one of the FBI’s top agents, a strong, smart role model for the entire human kind.

And now, look at her. Randomly shooting people, acting like a complete whacko, having to beg for mercy from an unarmed, underage teenager.

She’s just an empty shadow of her former self. If I wouldn’t be so busy trying to contain myself from murdering her, I could almost feel sorry for her.

Almost.

I force myself to stay calm as I wait for the agent to catch her breath. She coughs a couple more times, then she just lies there, giving me a creepy, mischievous smile.

Holy shit, she’s easy to hate.

“Damn, kid, you could have seriously hurt me right there,” she says, and I can’t decide whether she’s trying to be funny or if she’s just plain dumb.

“I still can. And I will,” I bark back at her, slamming my boot into her side for a little demonstration. She groans in pain as the force of the impact roles her over to her side.

My turn to smile.

“Careful, my little alien friend,” she says, slowly forcing herself to sit up and holding her side. “Ol’ agent Walker is the only thing that can still save Mr. hole-in-his-chest right here.”

Walker grumpily points at Nine, who is still cowering on his knees, pressing both his hands at the heavily bleeding wound. A scarily big pool of blood has formed on the floor around him, reminding me I don’t have much time to handle this whole thing. If Walker actually did poison him, we’ll have to get the antidote right now. Those Mog troops won’t stay away forever.

“And why would I believe that?” I demand, turning back to Walker.” How do I know that you didn’t just make this entire poisoned bullet thing up?”

“Oh, you don’t,” the agent replies, snickering in childish cheerfulness. “You don’t know, that’s the funny thing. You can’t tell until it’s too late.”

I give her another kick in the side and she goes flying against the floor once again.

“Hey!” she yells when she gets back up, rubbing her head. “Stop that right now! It makes my head go owie!”

I send my boot down at her one more time, but she manages to roll away before the kick connects. Unfortunately for her, though, I am a Loric; my agility and speed are superior to anything she will ever bring up. At the time she tries to get up from the ground, I’m already standing right beside her again, one foot victoriously resting on her belly.

She lets out a loud, disappointed puff as she realizes I was quicker than her again.

“That’s not fair. Using your powers is against the rules,” she complains.

“Listen, _agent_ ,” I hiss down at her. “I’d love to stay and discuss rules with you, but unfortunately, we don’t have time to play games.” Her eyes light up at the word ‘games’. “So how about you just hand over that antidote right now, and maybe I won’t make your death quite as painful.”

“Ah, yes, the antidote,” Walker grins back up at me. “Well, it’s not actually that simple.”

I press my boot against the agent’s belly more fiercely, producing a loud, moaning yelp from her.

“What do you mean, it’s not that simple? Does the antidote even exist, or did you just make it up after all?” I snarl, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“No, no, not made up. It’s all real,” Walker quickly replies. “But I don’t have it with me. The antidote is somewhere else… somewhere safe.”

“Great,” I mutter. “And where is this safe place?”

“Well, I’d like to tell you, but…” Walker says, motioning at my foot on her belly. I roll my eyes and take it off of her. She lets out a relieved sigh and sits back up.

“Now, I’ll tell you how this whole is going to go down,” she casually says while brushing the dust off her uniform. “You and your… _guy_ ,” she points at Nine, “are coming with me.”

She makes a pause and stands up with a long groan. I press my lips together, waiting for her to continue.

“You two will do anything I tell you to, at all time! And you will not, I repeat, _not_ try to kick me again, or the boy dies.”

I take a menacing step towards her, bringing my face so close to hers until our noses almost touch.

“ _This_ is how this thing’s going down,” I say, looking her right in the eyes. “You tell me where that antidote is or you die.”

Walker takes a step away from me, shaking her head in irritation.

“No, no, no,” she says. “Didn’t you listen to ol’ agent Walker? I just said you two will come with me, not that I’d die. That’s what I just said, yes. The little alien must be confused. Poor girl.”

I clench my fists so fiercely that I slowly lose the feeling in my fingertips.

“If you can’t tell me where to find the antidote, you are no use to us,” I say, trying to keep my voice down. The agent shrugs.

“Kill ol’ agent Walker, and your friend dies, too, sooner or later. Your choice.”

I stare at her, struggling to find an answer. It would be so easy to just follow my instincts, to give in to the aggressions inside of me, let out all my anger. I could just beat the crap out of her, then leave her lying here. Let the Mogs figure out what to do with her. The urge to finally give Walker what she deserves is just so strong, holding back drives me crazy.

But I can’t be this selfish, not this time. I still have no idea if Nine actually has been poisoned, but what I know is that this wound is going to kill him if we don’t treat it soon. I could really need a little help, even if it’s from the enemy.

Sooner or later, I’ll get my revenge on Walker, but it’ll have to wait. Right now, making sure Nine doesn’t die on me is way more important.

“Alright, Walker, you won. We’re coming with you,” I say to the agent and she claps her hands cheerfuly.

“Yay! I like winning,” she tells me in an excited tone, as if that was a reason for me to be happy.

I turn away from her, holding back the sarcastic comment I would have loved to drop right now, and walk over to Nine.

He is lying on the ground by now, still pressing his shaking hands over his chest. There’s blood everywhere on his shirt, and more just keeps pouring out of the wound. He already seems to be dizzy from the blood loss, and I don’t think he will stay conscious for much longer.

He looks up at me with glassy eyes as I come closer, his gaze dull.

“Six,” he weakly says to me. “Six, what’s going on? What are _they_ doing here?”

He points behind me, and I turn with a jolt, expecting someone to actually stand there. But when I look around, there’s no one in the room except for Nine, me and Walker.

“The poison can have side effects,” the agent explains, curiously eyeing Nine. “Small doses can lead to hallucinations. And high doses… well, death is some sort of a side effect, too, right?”

I roll my eyes and help Nine to his feet.

“We need to go, Nine. You hear me? We’re going away from here. Somewhere… safe,” I say loud and clearly, and Nine nods numbly. At least he still responds to my voice.

Pulling his left arm over my shoulder, I half carry, half drag him through the wrecked remains of the marble ceiling. We slowly make our way towards the hole in the force field, where Walker is already waiting for us. She keeps glancing through the hole, impatiently tapping her foot, almost as if expecting someone to appear right outside our cell any second.

The Mogs maybe. Or something worse. I don’t really want to know.

I let out a sigh and look at Nine, hanging from my shoulders right now. His long, sweaty dark hair loosely falls into his face, hiding his pained expression. The muffled groaning sounds he makes at every step we take speak for themselves, though, and I know one thing.

He’s not going to keep this up for much longer. Maybe the part about the poison was true after all. Maybe it’s already nagging its way through his body, eating him from the inside.

I force myself to stay positive, to believe everything will be okay, no matter how gullible that sounds.

“Hang in there, Nine,” I whisper, not really sure if he can hear me. “We’re getting out of this.

Alive.

Together.”


	28. Chapter Twenty-Seven

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: STILL WATERS AND THE BREACHING DAM**

7

Three surprised yelps echo through the forest.

One is the pitched, panicking scream of a girl, the kind you'll find in every halfway decent horror film, the kind that still rings in your ears even minutes after it actually ended. The second one is more of a grunt really, sounds a bit like a wild boar. A wild, massive and angry boar. Not something you'd want to mess with.

I take quick, small breaths while my heart pumps rage into my veins.

And then there is the third scream, the most satisfying of all three, if you ask me. A short, hick-up like noise of a voice I know all too well, like air being quickly let out of a balloon.

Yes, very satisfying indeed. But not enough.

Not enough…

If some lonely wanderer were to come strolling through the forest at this exact moment, he'd probably think he's hallucinating. He'd rub his eyes or tweak his arm to make sure that this is not a dream. Then he'd wonder what the hell his wife had put in the coffee this morning, because what he just witnessed sure as hell couldn't have actually happened. The three people that had been strolling through the trees just a second ago couldn't have just vanished from one moment to the next. Things like this don't happen.

But no lonely wanderer comes around to see the strange phenomenon happen, there's no one here to hear the cries ringing through the trees, no one but me.

My lips fiercely pressed together until they form a thin line, I slowly step forward, out of the bush I was hiding in, my hands raised high up in the air, pointing towards the three shadowy figures dangling twenty feet above me. Of course they didn't just vanish, making people disappear at will is not within my power. What I can do, though, is yank them from their feet and lift them so high up into the air that the fall would break more than one of their bones, which will have to do for now.

I have never tried using telekinesis on actual living beings before, and it sure as hell isn't easy, especially not on more than one person at a time, but I couldn't care less right now. The uncontrollable anger burning through my limbs numbs every sense of exhaustion I've felt before.

Like fish caught in a net, my victims wriggle around in the air, unable to break free of my telekinetic grip. Big, splashing raindrops keep pouring down on my face as I look up at them, blurring my vision, but I can still make out the three silhouettes in the darkness.

There's the Mog-girl, screaming and cursing incomprehensibly while aimlessly shaking her head back and forth, trying to find out why she no longer has the wet mud of the forest but rather a whole lot of thin air below her feet.

To the left, Eight screams even louder than her. Sweet tones of satisfaction! Every cry just further ignites the fire of anger that seems to burn me from the inside.

And then there's the big bulky Mog hovering a few feet below them. I can't get him as far up as the others, which might have to do with the fact that he probably weighs twice as much as the rest of them combined. His face is a silent mask of disbelief. Disbelief, that's all. Not fear, just mild confusion, as if the fact that he seems stuck at a height of twenty feet does not impress him at all.

I take a deep breath, then step into their field of view. Immediately three heads turn my way.

If I wasn't so damn pissed, I'd maybe even enjoy their baffled expressions as they slowly realize I'm the one behind all this.

But I am pissed. So I just tighten my telekinetic grip around them a little bit more, producing silent moans of pain.

Good. I think I got their attention.

"You have exactly ten seconds to explain," I shout up at Eight in a threatening tone.

"Marina? Marina, is that you?" he yells back through the rain.

Five seconds.

"Marina? How is she even… Listen, Marina let us down, and we can talk this out," he yells, but his time is up and I still got no explanation.

"I want an answer Eight. What the hell are you doing here, taking a walk with two Mogs through the forest like it's a completely normal thing to do while an entire army of these things just fucking tried to _murder_ us?" I scream, my lips trembling at the intensity of my voice.

"Listen, this is not what it looks like…" he shouts through the howling wind.

Excuses.

Again.

"It never is, right? Yeah, things are never as they seem with you. You're always off on your little adventures, teleporting here, shapeshifting there, running off on your own. Oh look, Eight turned into an elephant. Oh look, Eight turned into a bedside lamp. Oh look, Eight turned into a stupid, irresponsible idiot. No wait, he was one all along.

Hell, I don't even know what you actually look like. Maybe this shape is just another one of your stupid little disguises. Maybe you actually aren't a hyperactive boy who can't sit still for two seconds deep down. Or maybe you don't even have your own identity. Maybe you're just a sad lonely guy who has to slip into different roles every five minutes to compensate his crushing superficiality and carelessness!" I scream.

"I…" he begins, but I cut him off.

"You know what, I don't even care," I yell, my voice cracking. "We're Loric. We don't have to get along with each other, we don't have to have great personalities, we just have to survive. We just have to accomplish our mission, no matter how high the cost may be. Need to leave your own friends behind? Sure, no problem. As long as you get out alive."

"Are you talking about Ella…"

"OF COURSE I'M TALKING ABOUT ELLA!" I scream out of breath. "She was more than just a friend to me, to all of us!" I wave my hand around as if the others were here. "She was like a little sister. But you wouldn't know would you? You just got to stay in your own little adventure world where nothing but you really matters. _Friend_ , does that word even mean anything to you? Ring a bell? Friend? No? Here, let me give you an example. A friend is the kind of person you wouldn't leave behind on a train full of bloodthirsty monsters, just so that when this very friend comes looking for you, she finds you strolling around with these very monsters later on. This might make your friend angry – very, very angry. What do you have to say to that?"

"Marina, please, just let me down, I can explain everything…"

"Well explain it _now_! What do you want with these two?"

"Help," he shouts desperately, a bit of frustration in his voice. "I want help from them."

I stare at him in disbelief. A moment of silence passes.

"You're expecting help… from a _Mog_?" I laugh, and it sounds way more hysterical than I intended.

"Yeah, sounds kind of strange, right? Hey, umm… Marina, why don't we talk about this, like, on even ground?"

"You want these… these _things_ to help us?" I say, ignoring his pleading.

"That's the idea, yeah…" he stammers, and his uncertainty just pushes me further. I already feel the next rant building up, but I force myself to stay calm.

"These are the same Mogs from the train?" I ask, even though I already know the answer. Of course they are. It's not hard to tell. This here is the only Mog-girl I've ever seen in my life, I don't even know if there even are any others. And the guy looks really big and muscular even for a Mog. Not hard to recognize.

"Yes, that's them," Eight shouts down.

"The same ones that almost killed us with that bomb?" I shout and Eight frowns.

"Yeah… that's them."

"Actually," a pitched voice yells down at me, and it takes me a few seconds to realize it's the Mog-girl speaking. "Actually, we only used the bomb to blast our way out of the train. And to help you escape," she adds with a strange accent that makes me feel really uncomfortable.

Wow. So she… _it_ can talk.

I throw the Mog a quick disdaining glance, then turn back to Eight.

"You actually believe this?" I shout up. "What else did they tell you? That they are going to bring back Lorien? That the whole invasion thing was just some joke, or that they killed all those people by accident?"

"No. No, of course not," Eight says. "But they're not like the other Mogs, you see. They're different."

"Different!" I spit out with an intensity that even surprises me myself. I never thought I could be this bitter. The last days have dried my sense of patience, and I said more curse words in these couple of minutes than I have in the past 3 years. Maybe I'm being a bit too hard on Eight.

I stare up at the sky, letting the rain wash over my face. The initial adrenaline rush I'd got when seeing the three of them walking between the trees has worn off, and with it the quick surge of energy my anger brought has left me. The crushing exhaustion I'd felt before has now replaced the anger, and my arms are trembling at the effort it takes to hold all three of them up at once. I can feel every single muscle in my body burning as if I were on fire, and there's a disturbing metallic taste in my mouth again.

"Marina…" Eight says carefully. "Please, let us down. We'll work it out, there's no reason for this."

I want to disagree, but if I don't drop them right now I feel like my arms will fall off. With a shaking cough, I lower them, slowly at first, then faster and faster as my exhaustion quickly gets the better of me, until I end up dropping them the last couple of feet.

They land heavily on their backs, the Mog guy making a loud whacking sound and leaving a big mark in the mud.

I distrustfully watch them as they get to their feet, then I suddenly feel dizzy and my vision blurs. Eight rushes over and wants to help me sit down, but I push him away.

"So, here you are," I say hoarsely, struggling to stay on my feet. "Back down on the ground. Now, explain!"


	29. Chapter Twenty-Eight

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: BLINKING LIGHTS  
**

11

The world is upside down.

The.

World.

Is.

Upside.

Down.

How'd that happen? Did I do that?

Someone's shaking my shoulder. Fiercely.

I try turning my head to see who it is, but somehow I can't.

That's odd. I never had problem with turning my head.

I'm in a car. At least I think it's a car, I've never seen one from the inside. Only from a distance. Big, black, shiny cars rolling through the front gate of the Ashwood Estates.

This one doesn't seem that big, though. Not from the inside at least.

Maybe it's a bad car.

That would explain the shattered windows. And the dents and holes in its side. Or why it's not moving.

Something cold is stinging me in the side, and when I scratch the spot, I feel hot liquid running down my fingers. Alarmed I pull away my hand. It's red.

"Joanne, this one's still alive, I think," I hear a man's voice shout. It sounds oddly high, not Mogadorian at all. Kind of like the humans in the movies we sometimes watch at school.

Movies about how we evil humans are. Educational movies.

Someone's shaking my shoulder again.

"Hey," the same voice says right next to me. "Hey, kid. You okay?"

What's going on? Why can't I move my head.

"Hey, are you okay? Can you hear me?"

I can't feel my left leg. It's a strange thing to say, because if you can't feel your left leg, well, how can you feel that you are not feeling your left leg?

"Joanne, come quick! This one's bleeding. Really bad."

If I didn't have any legs, would I not feel them? And what if I actually have a third leg, but I just can't feel it?

"Really, really bad! Holy shit! We'll need to treat her right here."

Maybe I have a thousand legs, but I can't use them because I can't feel them. Maybe I have a thousand arms. Maybe I even have some completely new body parts I don't know about because I just can't feel them.

"Joanne, we need to get her out right now! If we don't stop the bleeding she'll die."

If I were to discover a completely new limb, what would I name it?

"Alright, umm, you take her hand, and I'll take her shoulders."

Someone's grabbing me by the shoulders.

Truchtzen, that would make a nice name. Truchtzen, that's got a ring to it. Hey, look at my new Truchtzen. I just discovered it.

"Her leg is stuck under the front seat. No, the left one."

It's a shame I can't feel my Truchtzen, though.

"Wait, I'll try to free it."

Why is the world upside down? It has been upside up for as long as I remember. Which is from the moment I was born.

"Just a second."

A sudden sharp pain shoots through my left leg. I groan. Guess I do feel my legs it after all.

"There we go."

I suppose that means I also don't have any extra Truchtzen. Oh well.

"On the count of three."

I'm being dragged out of the car, head first. It takes me a second to realize not the world is upside down but the car was flipped on its back.

Wow. This is not just a bad car, it must be the very worst car in the entire world.

As the jolly sound of a siren disrupts the rest of the noises around me, I suddenly notice how loud my surroundings are. Odd. It's never loud in the Ashwood Estates. The loudest it ever gets is when my next door neighbour, Commander Allry, has a cold and snores all night long.

But this is noise on a whole new level.

Sounds of multiple car engines, a crowd of people mumbling and whispering, and this siren blurt in my ears. It almost hurts, that's how loud it is.

"Ah, good, the ambulance."

They stop dragging me and lay me on my back, cold asphalt below me. I stare straight forward, up into the dark sky. There's a tiny airplane crossing my field of view. Small lights periodically blink on each of its wings, left, right, left, right.

The sky is deep black, except for a couple of lonely stars shine down on me, like small eyes, silently watching my every move.

It must be night by now. And it was early morning when Kelly and I had paid our visit to the General's meeting room. Which means I've been out for almost a whole day.

What happened during that time?

Left, right, left… As if it's trying to send me a signal. Nivi, it could be saying. Nivi, where are you? What's going on? Where's Kelly?

I flinch. Why hadn't I thought of that? Where's Kelly? Is she alright? All I remember is hearing her voice crying for help. Then stopping.

"Kelly?" I shout – well, it sounds more like a hoarse rooster cawing, really. "Kelly, are you here?"

I sit up, and my head immediately starts spinning and twisting. Dizzily I take in my surroundings. Flashing lights, colourful posters and advertisements everywhere, big, metal houses that reach high up in the sky with windows bigger than a fully grown up Mog.

Wait, this isn't the Ashwood Estates.

Crowds of people standing in a large circle around me and the burning flipped car.

Humans! Not Mogs, humans!

A man and a woman wearing a blue uniform are kneeling beside my left leg, wrapping it in white cloth that quickly turns red. My leg is oddly twisted in a strange angle, as if it were trying to run away from me. No sign of Kelly anywhere.

"Kelly," I caw again. "Kelly, where are you?"

The man looks up at me. "No, no, you can't sit up now, you have to lay down. You've lost a lot of blood," he says and helps me lay down again.

"Blood?" I mumble.

"Yes. Blood. There's been an accident."

"Accident?" I mumble. The man sighs and rolls his eyes.

"Could you maybe not repeat everything I say, thank you very much?"

"It's the shock," the woman says, still wrapping my leg in cloth. "A bit more patience. It's a miracle she's even conscious with the amount of blood she lost, let alone can speak."

"Sorry. Long day."

"Is there anyone we can call?" the woman at my leg continues. "Family, boyfriend, anyone who would want to know what happened to you? Anyone missing you?"

"Kelly," I say. "Call Kelly!"

"We need an address or a phone number," the man says.

"Call Kelly," I repeat. "I need to talk to Kelly!"

"Kelly, is that the other girl?"

I immediately sit back up. "She's here? Is she alright?"

"She's… not hurt, if that's what you mean. But she's behaving strangely, talking crazy stuff," the man answers.

"Must be the shock," the woman adds, shaking her head.

"What kind of crazy stuff?" I ask, and as if on cue, I hear Kelly yelling in her normal commanding voice.

"No, I obviously don't have a driver's license. That's why _I_ wasn't driving the damn car."

I look around, having to turn my whole upper body because I still can't seem to move my head, and spot her on the other side of the flipped car, talking to another man in blue uniform.

Well, not actually talking. Screaming probably describes it better.

Nonetheless, I'm happy to see her.

"How was I even supposed to be driving when I was sitting in the back the whole time? I mean, you even found me in the backseat."

"Well, someone had to be driving," the man replies without looking up from a small notepad in his hands.

"Obviously," Kelly replies in an annoyed tone. The man frowns at her, then motions her to continue.

"Two men were sitting in the front. One was driving," she sighs.

The man scribbles on his notepad.

"And where these two men now?"

"Dead," Kelly gives back and the man stops writing.

"Dead?"

"Yeah, you know, dead, as in 'stopped living'," Kelly explains impatiently. "It's what happens when you ask too many stupid questions," she adds with a glance at the man's notepad.

The man looks at her for a second, then continues taking notes.

"So, can we go now or what?" Kelly says after a while, but the man shakes his head.

Kelly presses her lips together and lets out an impatient sigh. She's not used to being denied anything, and I can tell she's not liking it very much. No. Not at all.

The crowd of humans around us on the other hand seems to really be enjoying themselves. Some of the, are laughing at Kell's conversation with the man, others are taking pictures of the burning car with their smartphones.

I've never had a smartphone myself, but we learned about them in school. 'Little devils of the modern age', our teacher Miss Grakhl had called them. Humans, she'd said, use them to communicate with each other. Phones dictate their every day lives, and some people would rather die than have to spend a day without one. I have no idea what she could have meant by that, though. How could anyone possibly let such a small insignificant device control his life? I mean, humans can't actually be this simple minded, right?

"Whoah, Joanne, did you see her side?" the man next to me says and I turn my attention back to him. He's standing to my right, pointing at the exact same spot I felt the cold stinging earlier.

The woman finishes patching up my leg and gives me a reassuring nod, as if to say everything's going to be fine. Then she walks over to the man and takes a look at where he's pointing.

I watch the corners of her mouth slowly drop down until her lips form a perfect semicircle.

If the mouth makes semicircle that points upwards, it usually means people are happy, Dad had once told me. A line can mean many different things, but a semicircle pointing downwards means people are sad, or angry. Or both.

And this woman's semicircle, umm, I mean, her mouth is definitely pointing downwards.

"Where did you say the holes in the side of the care came from again?" she asks me with a suspicious look on her face.

"I… don't know," I reply, because I seriously don't know. The woman doesn't seem to believe me, though.

"Trevor, you'll want to see the see this," she shouts over at the guy who's talking… being yelled at by Kelly. The man looks up from his notepad, nods in our direction and starts shoving Kelly over.

"Do you even know who you're dealing with?" I hear her shout as they approach us. "My father is… was a really powerful man!"

The man rolls his eyes and stops next to the woman. When he looks down at me, a surprised whistling noise escapes his nose. "Holy shit, what happened to her?"

"Multiple bullet wounds," the woman replies, pointing at my right side. "Two in the hips – bullets probably still inside – one in her arm, went through cleanly, and one graze shot to the neck."

Bullets. I knew something had stung me.

"It's a miracle she's even alive right now. The seat we found her in was soaked in blood," she continues and motions towards the car. "Well, at least that explains the exploded gas tank. Bullet must have hit it."

"Alright, who the hell are you and why the hell were you shot at?" the man turns back to Kelly, who had gone oddly pale from the moment the woman had started explaining the wounds in my side.

She quickly looks away from me. Almost as if Kelly wasn't as used to seeing blood as she always says after all. But no, that's impossible, Kelly is the toughest person I know.

Maybe she's just not feeling good after the accident. Probably.

"I already told you," she hoarsely says. "We were trying to run away from… a gang. They were after us because they thought we had killed their leader."

"Why would they think you killed their leader?" the other man asks.

"Oh, that's because we did," Kelly smiles, slowly regaining her composure. The man with the notepad shakes his head.

"You said there were two other men. Where are they now?" he demands and Kelly puffs out an annoyed sigh.

"Are you deaf? I told you, they're dead!"

"Where are their bodies then?"

"Gone, of course. Where else would they be?"

"There were traces of white powder on the front seat… Were you guys doing drugs?"

"That's ash you idiot."

"Careful, young lady, or I'm going to have to…" the man begins, but Kelly cuts him off.

"Listen, _officer_ , your good cop bad cop things ain'g gonna work on me, so why don't we all just walk away from this and no one gets hurt?"

Yup, that's the Kelly I know. Laughs from the crowd follow as the two men and the woman all stare at her in what seems to be complete astonishment about her threat to hurt them.

"I'll take that as a yes," she says, and kneels down next to me.

"Hey Nivi, good to see you… alive, and all," she says with a quick glance down at my wounded side. "I hate to rush you," – lie – "but we need to move before their reinforcements arrive."

"Reinforcements?" I ask. That doesn't sound good.

"Yeah, reinforcements. Things got a bit rough after I… after may father… after you blacked out," her voice cracks and she clears her throat. "Apparently the soldiers at Ashwood weren't exactly happy to find out we'd… you know. Anyway, some of them followed us when we fled out of the base. We managed to get rid of them, but it cost us my two most loyal soldiers and the car." She shrugs and stands back up, leaving the details of how it happened to my imagination. I gulp. "They'll send reinforcements to go after us, I'm sure of it. That's why we need to get going, right now. Can you walk?"

She grabs me by the shoulder and starts pulling me to my feet. I groan in pain. The woman immediately steps in and pushes Kelly away.

"Are you crazy? She can count herself lucky if she can ever walk again after this kind of injury. And you two aren't going anywhere, anyway. You have some questions to answer at the police station first. Now, where's that damn ambulance for the poor girl? She's dying here."

Yeah, where's my ambulance? I thought I'd heard the sirens quite a while ago.

Just then, a car door slams shut and heavy steps over drown out the noises of the crowd. Then, as if being pulled apart by two strings, the crowd parts and makes way for a group of men in long, white coats who are quickly marching towards us. But even without the crowd suddenly parting, the newly arrived men would stand out between all those humans, simply because they must be at least one head taller than anyone of the surrounding people.

To the surrounding pedestrians, the men must appear like the strangest team of doctors they've ever seen. Every single one of them is wearing an oversized pair of sunglasses and some sort of hat, and then there are the weapons in their belts. Guns, knives, swords, grenades, you name it.

Yes, these humans must think this is the weirdest doctor task team ever.

Kelly and I, on the other hand, know better. We know that the hats are there to hide their tattoos. They need the sunglasses so no one sees their big, purple eyes. And they carry their weapons not for protection, but for aggression. Their only purpose is aggression. These men live to kill.

And we are their targets.

"Finally, that took you…" the woman begins, but the men just shove her aside with apparently no effort at all. As if they were not from this world.

They stop to lean over me, five or six of them, and I freeze.

"Did someone call for an ambulance?" one of them snarls and smiles at me with his big, white, razor-sharp Mog teeth.


End file.
